Last week, the Huffington Post reported that 41 U.S. states have begun to adopt the Common Core State Standards for English which among other things doesn't require any kind of cursive training for grade schoolers anymore.
So instead of practicing not to have any letters floating above the line or dipping below it, the line doesn't even exist anymore. Apparently learning to write is no longer important because all can type...how sad is that?
Just the other day, in my journalism class, the professor asked the class for all of us to get out a piece of paper and a pen to start writing our latest blog post. Some students boisterously complained, some tried to fake their disdain, and some even resorted to getting out their smart phones to log onto the website and type with their itsy bitsy keyboards. You'd think he asked us to drive a horse and buggy from Springfield to Columbus or use an outhouse instead of our trusty indoor plumbing.
In this age of texts, 140 character messages, and emoticons, even something type-written on the type writer looks downright romantic. Instead of even writing notes to remember to take out the trash or pick up a gallon of milk, we text someone. We wonder why we're continuing to dip lower and lower every year to the world's children in reading comprehension and language scores; you're never asked to write anything. Even most standardized tests are being completed online. Is it laziness on the part of teachers who don't want to try to decipher if that's a p or a q? Do we just expect in the ever-evolving internet age that we shouldn't be expected to learn how to do "old-fashioned" things like writing? I feel like an analog guy living in a digital world. It's a bad moon rising, and I hope for the sake of the world, we learn that sometimes newer isn't always better.
