Curious Realizer - 21st Century Rosetta Stone

Cursive, written and typed

Something different, a post in three versions.

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Cursive writing

Printing

Digital text

You’re going to see three versions of this post.  Apologies in advance:  some of you may to struggle to read all three versions, especially this first one, written in cursive.  The second will be printed by hand.  The third will be typed directly into the newsletter editor.  The entire post will be like a 21st century Rosetta Stone.

My gut reaction to the seeming abandonment of cursive writing by public education is to feel both sad and angry.  Yes, it’s extremely important to know how to type these days; I consider my high school typing class to be one of the most important classes of all.  But I would argue that complete reliance on keyboards and digital output would make our society weaker.  Both modes of writing are important.  There is significant value in being able to recognize a symbol in multiple forms and cursive writing can help develop this skill.  Many handwritten works remain untranslated.  Not all of our collective history is good but let’s not discount cursive writing, one of the only keys to that knowledge.

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What do you think? Should we throw our pens and pencils away? Should we bring back cursive writing? Or does it matter?

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