科技已经让我们不必写字了?

“So we are making sure we are forming our letters correctly…” At Saint Jan de Chatal Elemental School in Berthersder, cursive writing is still king.

“By the time they come to 4th grade, we are cursive all the time.” Kale Cooper’s class practices writing graceful flowing script.

“How many of you like to write cursive? Raise your hand. All of you.” “To connect those letters. It looks really cool when it's connected.” “So you can get your work much faster ‘cause you don’t have to pick up your pencil.”

But technology has erased cursive’s popularity. Keyboarding and texting have taken over, it seems. And by high school many kids are back to printing.

“It’s easier to write in print. It’s faster. You have to take a lot of notes, so you just right to print.”

“They stop teaching everyone. And I just like got used to doing print, and never got the hand of using cursive.”

What happened? Jane Awson, founder of a new simpler style of cursive used by Arlington and other school districts, says teachers don’t learn how to use penmanship any more. So they don’t enforce it. They let students print. And students forget how to write cursive. Awson argues script is faster and conveys maturity.

“If you are writing something, and a person looking at it says 'Oh, that looks like a second grader did that', that doesn’t give a real good impression.” That’s she says to mind those Bs and Qs and keep the cursive flowing.