Davalynn Spencer
Davalynn Spencer

Shakespeare had a way with words, particularly in "Hamlet" as the character Rosencrantz reports, "... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither."

Oh, the power of the written word.

In the last several years, the term "written" has taken on a new meaning that is closer to "printed." Some school boards and administrators are grappling with whether or not to do away with cursive writing instruction since it is not a required standards-based course.

What a shame. I remember thinking how exciting it was learning to write the "grown up" way.

In second or third grade, depending upon the district, teachers taught their students cursive writing. It was a big deal because you no longer wrote like a woodpecker, picking up your pencil after every stroke. You could curl and sweep and slide through the words, and how beautiful it was!

Best-selling author James Patterson still uses it. He writes in longhand on a legal pad. In a recent "Parade" interview, he said his penchant for paper and pencil drives his son crazy, "but I've been pretty successful with that little pencil."

No kidding.

I suspect Patterson's son sees it a huge waste of time to scratch a lead stick across yellow lined paper when it's so much faster to let your fingers fly over the computer keys.


But writing is the way Patterson writes. It's the way his brain transfers his thoughts to a battery of other writers who flesh out his outlines and ideas. I'm not here to tout the man and his authorial approach, but rather, his method of pencil/pen on paper. The way he makes a sensory connection with the art, using fine motor skills.

Some occupational therapists today believe too much computer screen time adversely affects children's motor skill development. Michelle Yoder of Touchstone Therapy in North Carolina predicts that fine motor skill development as supported through instruction, such as cursive handwriting "helps ingrain skills and information in the brain." The jury is out until a generation of non-cursive writers enters the adult world, but Yoder predicts trouble.

I remember how surprised I was as a child to see my rough farmer grandfather's beautiful flowing script. My handwriting is nearly illegible by comparison because I'm in too big of a hurry. The world I live in is in too big of a hurry, and that's why cursive writing is falling by the wayside.

But it's not the only thing slipping away from our children.

When I taught sixth-grade in California, our grade level math teacher complained that students did not know their math facts, so she started in on the forbidden "D" word: drills. The children loved it, and rose to the competitive challenge of out-answering their classmates in a quick flash-card game of Around the World. Until the principal came into class and saw the students doing something that was not a state standard.

My fellow educator was warned to not let it happen again. Students didn't need drills; they had calculators.

Experience in the form of repetition is a great teacher. Doing something over and over wears a path in the brain, according to Dr. Kathy Mann Koepke of the National Institutes of Health. An NIH study provided evidence that learning math facts by rote helps skill development in other areas, Koepke said.

It would be a shame to let standards and technology cost our children the art and skill of working their brains and fingers.

Imagine a former President of the United States printing his name on an important document.

Imagine the Declaration of Independence without those uniquely bold and significant names inked onto its parchment.

If we lose something as simple as cursive handwriting, we would lose our signatures. And if we lose our signatures, isn't that like losing a little bit of ourselves?

Email Davalynn at dcscolumnist@yahoo.com.