Idaho lawmaker embarks on cursive crusade
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Both a sentimental and practical appeal is embedded in Rep. Linden Bateman's crusade to mandate cursive handwriting in Idaho elementary schools.
Developing cursive skills - where the letters of the alphabet are joined in fluid, looping gestures - promotes manual dexterity, boosts reading comprehension and enhances cognitive development, Bateman told the House Education Committee on Tuesday, as he sought support for requiring cursive instruction in the state's public-school curriculum.
"If we do not teach cursive, the day will come when people will not be able to read cursive," he said. "Family history study will suffer, genealogical research will suffer and historical research of all kinds will suffer."
But the Idaho Falls Republican said his effort also reflects an emotional affinity for what he views as a more elegant time in America, a period when men went to ballgames in jackets and ties, where nobody wore jeans or hooded sweat shirts and even the gangsters of his beloved black-and-white Turner Classic Movies doffed fedora hats. Bateman, 72, spent his professional life as a high school history teacher in eastern Idaho, but spoke Tuesday like a botanist might of the struggle to save a rare and vanishing flower.
As cursive goes, he said, so goes the country.
"Nice handwriting projects intelligence and gracefulness and encourages artistic expression," Bateman said, adding the typed word "is just so sterile, so 'Blah.' It just doesn't have personality."
Idaho is hardly alone in debating cursive's merits, in an era when emails and rapid-fire texts sent from electronic devices like smartphones have largely supplanted the long-form letter.
Last year, California, the foundry of American technology companies, opted to keep cursive in its third-grade curriculum, mirroring moves in Georgia and Massachusetts.
Other states, including Indiana, Illinois and Hawaii, have left it as optional for school districts, while Utah, Idaho's southerly neighbor, is studying the issue.
Why now?
Along with Idaho, they're among 45 states that are due to adopt national curriculum guidelines, called "Common Core Standards," come the 2014 school year. Those will require computer keyboarding by the time pupils exit elementary school - but not that kids have cursive instruction.
Currently, Idaho gives flexibility to local school districts to decide whether to teach cursive, said Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath on Tuesday.
For Bateman, a passionate red-headed orator who elicits a good-natured exasperation for those who do not share his passions with equal vigor, such a policy leaves too much to chance. Younger teachers who themselves aren't versed in cursive will simply let it fall by the wayside, he fears.
"If we're going to save it, it's going to take state leadership," he told Tuesday's committee. "We are at a crossroads."
A Mormon who served a mission in Germany five decades ago, Bateman still corresponds with pen pals across the Atlantic, in their language and in cursive. Though Bateman is now rather proud of his flowing script - in committee, he holds up a letter to a constituent dating to 1985 in which his signature is decorated like an eagle - he acknowledges it wasn't always that way.
"My mother said it looked like a chicken had walked over a page," Bateman recalls, of his early stabs at writing.
In 1998, his mother, Bernice Patterson Bateman, wrote a letter to family reminding them of the importance of civic virtue and doing the right thing. She was 81 and knew her days were waning; she sat down and wrote it the old-fashioned way, so future Batemans would remember her thoughts.
"She didn't type it," Bateman said. "She wrote it. She wanted it to be personal."
Now, Bateman fears the demise of cursive, should it come to pass, would be a sad stand-in for the demise of an age of civility - and the triumph of a culture of casualness and sloppiness.
Bateman said he never foresaw the day when receiving a handwritten letter, with its graceful arcs and swoops, might be considered a "special occasion."
He writes more than 100 letters annually; most often, he gets a phone call back. People tell him they don't quite know what else to do.
"It's like trying to hold the ocean back with a pitchfork," Bateman acknowledges. "But I'll try."
Developing cursive skills - where the letters of the alphabet are joined in fluid, looping gestures - promotes manual dexterity, boosts reading comprehension and enhances cognitive development, Bateman told the House Education Committee on Tuesday, as he sought support for requiring cursive instruction in the state's public-school curriculum.
"If we do not teach cursive, the day will come when people will not be able to read cursive," he said. "Family history study will suffer, genealogical research will suffer and historical research of all kinds will suffer."
But the Idaho Falls Republican said his effort also reflects an emotional affinity for what he views as a more elegant time in America, a period when men went to ballgames in jackets and ties, where nobody wore jeans or hooded sweat shirts and even the gangsters of his beloved black-and-white Turner Classic Movies doffed fedora hats. Bateman, 72, spent his professional life as a high school history teacher in eastern Idaho, but spoke Tuesday like a botanist might of the struggle to save a rare and vanishing flower.
As cursive goes, he said, so goes the country.
"Nice handwriting projects intelligence and gracefulness and encourages artistic expression," Bateman said, adding the typed word "is just so sterile, so 'Blah.' It just doesn't have personality."
Idaho is hardly alone in debating cursive's merits, in an era when emails and rapid-fire texts sent from electronic devices like smartphones have largely supplanted the long-form letter.
Last year, California, the foundry of American technology companies, opted to keep cursive in its third-grade curriculum, mirroring moves in Georgia and Massachusetts.
Other states, including Indiana, Illinois and Hawaii, have left it as optional for school districts, while Utah, Idaho's southerly neighbor, is studying the issue.
Why now?
Along with Idaho, they're among 45 states that are due to adopt national curriculum guidelines, called "Common Core Standards," come the 2014 school year. Those will require computer keyboarding by the time pupils exit elementary school - but not that kids have cursive instruction.
Currently, Idaho gives flexibility to local school districts to decide whether to teach cursive, said Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath on Tuesday.
For Bateman, a passionate red-headed orator who elicits a good-natured exasperation for those who do not share his passions with equal vigor, such a policy leaves too much to chance. Younger teachers who themselves aren't versed in cursive will simply let it fall by the wayside, he fears.
"If we're going to save it, it's going to take state leadership," he told Tuesday's committee. "We are at a crossroads."
A Mormon who served a mission in Germany five decades ago, Bateman still corresponds with pen pals across the Atlantic, in their language and in cursive. Though Bateman is now rather proud of his flowing script - in committee, he holds up a letter to a constituent dating to 1985 in which his signature is decorated like an eagle - he acknowledges it wasn't always that way.
"My mother said it looked like a chicken had walked over a page," Bateman recalls, of his early stabs at writing.
In 1998, his mother, Bernice Patterson Bateman, wrote a letter to family reminding them of the importance of civic virtue and doing the right thing. She was 81 and knew her days were waning; she sat down and wrote it the old-fashioned way, so future Batemans would remember her thoughts.
"She didn't type it," Bateman said. "She wrote it. She wanted it to be personal."
Now, Bateman fears the demise of cursive, should it come to pass, would be a sad stand-in for the demise of an age of civility - and the triumph of a culture of casualness and sloppiness.
Bateman said he never foresaw the day when receiving a handwritten letter, with its graceful arcs and swoops, might be considered a "special occasion."
He writes more than 100 letters annually; most often, he gets a phone call back. People tell him they don't quite know what else to do.
"It's like trying to hold the ocean back with a pitchfork," Bateman acknowledges. "But I'll try."
I've always been complimented on my fluid cursive handwriting although I never understand why until the older I got. People just don't care anymore what their handwriting looks like nor do they get any practice since no one writes letters anymore. I couldn't tell you the last time I received a handwritten letter.
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I'm going to hand write a couple letters today to some out-of-state friends. Just because.
What a bone head. Teach them how to do enough cursive to sign their names and spend the rest of the time teaching them how to type and use word processing programs like "MS Word". Who uses cursive anymore except for old people? What a waste of time. Cursive was created when people were hand writing everything as a faster way to communicate. Now we don't even send letters, we send text messages, emails and FB messages. Why waste valuable class room time teaching a useless skill? Glad my kid's school doesn't waste much time on this anymore and both my kids are proficient typers and computer users.
And another thought - if they are to type everything as is the times - how about required typing classes!? I learned to type and we didn't even have computers. They do not have typing classes in our schools...Hunt and peck is what all the kids do nowadays. So, if they are to change over to 'up to date technological learning' wouldn't that be a good replacement?
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Or maybe being a fast texter is the only thing that matters (sarcasm).
Fascinating! I didn't realize they were fazing out cursive all over (shows you what I know). My kids can not read my handwriting because it is still (mostly) cursive. I find that awful. I did not realize they were not teaching it in school anymore until a few years back when they couldn't read the cards my mother would send them! I was appalled. (Now I am all over again).
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I remember vividly the large, 3 lines w/ the center one dotted and practicing cursive letters over and over trying not to go over the line; only to just to it.
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I also know that my teens can't multiply without a calculator! My oldest is in Physics and a whiz in math, but basics? Nope. I find this a travesty that schools no longer have their students memorize their multiplication tables. I used to have them do the tables on car trips. But it was not the same as day-after-day recitation in class.
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I think there is value in each. I mean really - teens that can't read cards from the generations before them?
I can remember learning cursive in third grade, unlike many of my peers I loved it and had no problem picking up on it. By third grade I had spent many, many hours reading old letters to and from my grandmother that were all in cursive. My ninth grade daughter HATES cursive, but she did learn it and can both ead and write it, my son is in second grade and hasn't yet learned to writeit although he can read some cursive (his reading level is lower than a normal mid 2nd grade level). I would hate to see cursive no longer being taught as it is part of our history. I know not everyone uses it on a daily basis and like most the only time I really use it is when writing a check or signing my name but I really feel it is something that needs to be taught. If budget cuts are to blame then maybe teach it 3 hours a week for 6 weeks in second, third, and fourth grade.Â
To 31F, Â Cursive is not to make things pretty. Â Perhaps you did not read all the article. Â Cursive reveals the writer's intelligence and makes a a personal appeal to the receiver. Â I spent the last ten years of teaching fighting the decline in cursive instruction to no avail. Â I regret its disappearance as I regret the decline in civility.Â
 @Janette RÂ
Cursive reveals the writer's intelligence? Not sure about the logic of that one? So Stephen Hawking (who can't write at all) is not intelligent because he is unable to do cursive? Have you ever seen Einstein's handwriting? He was a "C" student. Cursive has not a thing to do with intelligence, if you were a teacher you need to read about the history of it. It was created to speed up communication. Centuries ago men like Abe Lincoln would write 100s of correspondence a day. Cursive made this possible. Today it is virtually useless except to sign ones name. Nobody uses snail mail to send letters any more. We use emails, Facebook and text messages. Time would be better spent teaching these ways of communication. No boss is going to ask you how well you write in cursive. They will ask how fast you type and how well you know how to use Word, Excel and Powerpoint!
Like the buggy whip, it is time to move on with the times. Â Adapt to change, grow, move forward... Â My cursive is impeccable, and often called beautiful, however it's worthless; It's just art. Â Writing is a form of communication. Â Let's work on communication, instead of making things pretty... Â
Interesting thoughts and arguments for and against. I can understand cursive requires dexterity and this mental training is of value during the learning years. I learned it during my school years in the late 1950s and and cursive until I went into Engineering which required clear printing. Even a drafting course during high school required printing or block letters. But today I am practically unable to write cursive because of my profession and it is difficult to read when someone is rather sloppy.  So I am in the middle of this argument and see both sides.Â
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But I do think this individual from Idaho has a lot of "the good old days" in his arguments which in my opinion invalidates his reasoning to some extent. Perhaps he is fond enough to go back to outhouses with Sears Catalogs along side for reading and wiping? I doubt it.  I did grow up in an area in Wyoming where not everyone had indoor toilets or electricity or running water back in the late 1950s. I am not wanting to revisit that part of the good old days even though I do have fond memories of my childhood -- but we all the luxuries.
I'm quite proud of my cursive handwriting as well. It was still required when I was in school and no one said anything negative about it, but I remember by the time I got out of high school that younger kids were complaining about having to learn it. I practice it regularly, and having an app on my phone that allows me to draw or write on the screen instead of typing in a note means that I can do it to my heart's content without wasting paper.
I didn't even know they still taught cursive. I never used it past elementary school and I'm 51. Hey, we all get nostalgic as we get older but nostalgia shouldn't be a reason to keep an antiquated and mostly useless skill in the curriculum. Teaching them good English skills to improve literacy is something else.
 @shlibotnik I am 43 and used it everyday in jr high and high school when turning in assignments such as book reports, essays etc.....Our writing had to be legible and neat and it wasn't until my senior year when we had the option of using a computer to create and print it out but then again we were too poor to have our own computer at home so I either had to stay after school to use theirs or just hand write it. My husband is 38 and I am not sure he even knows how to write in cursive and honestly his printing is atrocious as well but then again, his job now requires all work done on computer and printed out. I would like to see more young people enjoy taking the time to perfect something so beautiful. I have letters from my great great grandfather and his writing was what I think of a woman writing but that's just the way it was done so many years ago and I don't think of it as nostalgic but rather if the child takes time writing in cursive I believe they focus better on the word and what they are writing. What's next, completely forgoing teaching how to even write any letters? Heck, stick a keyboard in front of the kids and just show them to tap the proper key. That's all our culture will devolve to. Hunched over computers pecking away, seems so sad.
 @shlibotnik Too bad you didn't keep up with it after taking the time to learn it. I am over 50 and I use it every day.
This is a quote from our daughter's teacher during a parent-teacher night at a local middle school: "I am not worried about whether they are learning, just as long as they are happy." Teacher looked me straight in the eye and said it.
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You can imagine the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot expression on my face.
 @Bornhere Oh I know I can...and I would have been telling the teacher that if they aren't concerned if the child is learning or not then they are in the wrong profession! I can understand a teacher wanting the kids to be happy WHILE their learning, but not not worry about IF they are learning? Just another reason why my kids will be home schooled!
I back him completely. Kids today CAN NOT write in cursive. I am not even sure why the teachers teach it but then any and all homework/essays etc... must be done on the computer and printed out. I really miss the good 'ole days of actually learning relevant information. Along with the 3 r's, we were also taught how to cook, sew, re-build a small engine, woodworking, how to solder, ballroom dance, rifle etc..... Although I grew up extremely poor with a wood burning stove to heat our home, having to chop wood, hand wash clothes and hang them all over the house to dry, I feel bad for my own kids. They are the kids that I would have thought of as the rich kids in school, but these days they don't get the care-free kids days as much as I did. I am so worried about the childhood of my future grand kids. It looks so bleak.
It's worse than just cursive. Our entire language is being shredded by younger generations. And the 20 to 30 year old fresh faced teachers are just as ignorant of basic English writing skills as anyone. Â
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If you're older than 25, you probably don't even realize that kids aren't learning cursive like we all did, but it's absolutely true and kind of sad.Â
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And frankly so many articles even here at KOMO have such poor grammar that you realize that American English is in a death spiral. Â
 @lakeview Ok, I learned cursive in school, the only time and I mean ONLY time I ever use it is signing checks/receipts...and that is not even true cursive...more like a scribble.
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Times have changed. Typing is FAR faster and easier then writing. Yes language is changing along with it. There is nothing you can do to stop that. You can force children to learn cursive, and by the time they are in middle school they will have forgotten because there is very little they will read that is written in cursive, smaller yet is the amount of writing they will do using cursive.
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American English is not in a death spiral, it is in a state of change, as is all languages.Â
 @Jalharad  @lakeview I agree with lakeview, American English IS in a death spiral! So many younger people cannot spell and they have no comprehension of proper grammar. By the way, Jalharad, the last sentence you wrote should end with "as ARE all languages".Â
 @doxiemom2008 Man I hate grammar police on these forums. This is informal and people tend to type fast and are not expecting them to be corrected by busy bodies!
@Jalharad @lakeview True. And even well written cursive is slower to read than simple, clear printing.