Teacher Editorial | By Tara Gauchier (BOLT student)
See how nice I can write in cursive. It took me many years to perfect my handwriting (many more to get the perfect signature). I was not allowed to print in school and so I followed the rules and adapted my printing abilities to handwriting. But increasingly students are not taught to handwrite. Slowly handwriting has fallen by the wayside and printing became more common, but the change did not stop there, technology came along (specifically word processing tools) and is now regularly used in schools. I type everything now. My handwriting (I use the term handwriting and cursive interchangeably, they mean the same to me) is not as perfect as it once was and I find it to be time consuming and, let’s face it, my hand gets tired from lack of practicing the skill. This leads me to two (seemingly) simple questions; Is the idea of teaching students to handwrite archaic? Should teachers push the use of word processing skills over the use of the hand as a writing implement?