Cursive may not be your cup of tea, but it is important and should not be relegated to the status of a lost art. Kids who won’t read/write cursive will be at a disadvantage. I expect good parents who homeschool will continue to teach the basics, and their children will be more successful than others.
You mentioned “a keyboard drive world”. That isn’t even the case any more. The existence of keyboards are dwindling due to new voice recognition software and poking letters on a flat screen. There may be a time when kids won’t be able to Google anything or read the “interweb”. We don’t know what restrictions future leaders have in store for us.
Latin also is “dead”. But I learned it, and it has made school and life easier. The smartest people I know were Latin students. So it’s dead, but is helpful.
I agree with your comparison to Latin, and in that respect, I do believe that cursive has its place. Absolutely.
But. Is that place occupying a prime position in a developing elementary school child’s day? Should we teach Latin to every 1st grader?
Or, should Latin be a subject for older children who develop a knack and interest in such things?
Have we moved, as a society, to a place where cursive is less of a utilitarian need and more of a specialty skill? I think so.
I can remember my tenth grade teacher telling me I’d be made fun of as an adult for not writing in cursive. Here I am, 30 years later, and I don’t know a single person that routinely writes in cursive.
My kids have penmanship every day. They love it. It’s helped with hand/eye coordination as well. And they’re just as good on the keyboard and ipad as any other kids their age. Then again we homeschool so we don’t waste hours each day with silly administrative games.
I agree.
Here’s a link about how writing “by hand” triggers different areas of the brain compared with tracing letters or keyboarding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0
Here’s an odd quote from the next link:
“ Our new U.S. Secretary of the Treasury can’t (or won’t) write his own name on the new money being “
and
“Yet scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization”[2] (link is external)—that is, the capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during the learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201303/why-writing-hand-could-make-you-smarter