Is cursive important to our everyday lives? We use it to write our signatures on legal documents, passports, and store credit card scanner (well, not really anymore). Elementary school might have taught the basics to writing in cursive, but it really isn’t mentioned much once middle school begins. Should schools add cursive to their curriculums, or is it better to keep it out?

Cursive can teach kids much more than just how to write it. Cursive can also teach good eye-hand coordination, focus, dexterity, improves the ability to read cursive, and might improve writing speed. 7th grade journalism students Brianna Limmer, Adrianna Popovich, and Lila Ulmer shared their opinions when it comes to learning cursive.

“Yes,” Limmer said when asked if kids should learn cursive, “Only because if you don’t know cursive you can’t do your signature when you get older.” Popovich and Ulmer both agree cursive should be taught in schools, but it shouldn’t have to be a class, or be used in all that you write.

Journalism and 7th grade LA teacher Mr. Malmstrom goes deeper into saying that there isn’t much “necessity for it in our current society” with all the new technology that has cursive fonts. “I think it is a lost art, and it’s sad to see people who can’t handwrite, let alone write cursive,” said Mr. Malmstrom.

Limmer, Popovich, and Ulmer all said that cursive should be learned because people would need to sign legal documents in the future. Mr. Malmstrom has a different opinion though. He doesn’t think kids need to learn cursive, but if they did, it would teach them “focus and [to] take pride in your writing.” 

There could be so many reasons why cursive isn’t taught in schools. A big reason is because of computers that have cursive fonts, so there is no need to learn the writing style. Limmer said she is “unsure” why cursive is not taught. Popovich gave a completely different opinion, saying that “teachers might not think it is actually practical”. Ulmer said that kids might find the subject “boring”, so it’s not in the curriculum for that reason.

Mr. Malmstrom said, “People don’t think it’s necessary. Technology is changing so rapidly.” He also said that “because technology is changing so fast, education and teaching is trying to change with it, and people are just using computers in school to write everything now”.

Even if people say that learning how to write in cursive is unnecessary or a waste of time, there is so much that is able to be learned if it was in schools’ curriculums. But with technology expanding rapidly, there soon might not be a need for the subject. If that turns out to be the case, people should still learn at least the basics of how to write in cursive, because who knows, maybe one day they will end up needing it.