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Your view: Actors, please stop sharing your opinions

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Luzerne County bid process questioned

<p>This editorial could be penned in cursive writing and printed in this space easily thanks to modern technology, but that would kind of defeat the purpose.</p><p>Society adopted uniform printed text precisely so everyone could read it. Newspapers in particular choose a font for its readability.</p><p>And when it comes to cursive &#8212; as <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/627610/despite-pushes-to-eliminate-cursive-writing-luzerne-county-schools-stick-with-it" target="_blank">reported </a>in Sunday&#8217;s Times Leader &#8212; if it is taught in schools, it&#8217;s taught in a uniform style, for an obvious reason: Just like print and type, it needs to be readable. Otherwise, you are teaching secret code.</p><p>And it <em>is</em> taught in local schools, which may raise the question: Are our area schools stubbornly behind the times, or brilliantly forward-thinking?</p><p>Nationally, there&#8217;s been a good amount of hand-wringing regarding the presumed demise of handwriting lessons in public schools, so much so that some states have passed laws mandating it be part of the curriculum.</p><p>But with that angst comes a fair question: Are those fighting to keep cursive in the classroom doing so because it is a truly valuable skill we can&#8217;t afford to lose, or are they motivated by nostalgic sentiment?</p><p>As Sunday&#8217;s article noted, studies show students who learn handwriting are more likely to have an easier time learning to read. Handwriting may help students with dyslexia.</p><p>And handwriting makes it easier for a student to conceptualize both upper and lower case letters when working on a keyboard, which typically only shows upper case.</p><p>Besides, the argument goes, if you want to read primary source material like the Declaration of Independence or letters written by your parents, you need to know cursive.</p><p>But studies also show there isn&#8217;t a lot of difference between learning to write in print, or manuscript, and learning in cursive.</p><p>Perhaps more importantly, the world of writing and keyboarding is blurring. Computers frequently come with a cursive font, so you don&#8217;t need to know how to write with a pen to &#8220;write&#8221; in cursive, and touch screens let you write on a screen.</p><p>And computers are becoming so powerful it is easy to believe someday soon you will be able to scan a cursive document and get it accurately translated most of the time. And with important documents, you already don&#8217;t have to bother. They&#8217;ve been translated into uniform typeface you can download, search, cut and paste.</p><p>Presumably there will always be a value to knowing how to jot things down by hand. No matter how ubiquitous computers get, it may be faster to scratch a short shopping list before heading to the store, and you may have to reach for the pen when a battery dies.</p><p>But it&#8217;s important to remember cursive writing is a tool. It lets a person record, store and share ideas and information.</p><p>It is always helpful to learn how to use any tool. It makes a person flexible and adaptable. But think, for a moment, about the slide rule and digital calculator.</p><p>It is rarely helpful to force a person to use one tool when another is more effective for the job.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Lee Park Elementary School second-grader David Lapallo practices his cursive writing with his class in Hanover Township.   Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_TTL010817cursive_mg_3-5.jpg</photo0><caption0>Lee Park Elementary School second-grader David Lapallo practices his cursive writing with his class in Hanover Township.   Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>

Our view: Is cursive writing a tool whose time has passed?