Writing - Also Known as Penmanship

I started to school in first grade and my teachers had to teach me how to “draw” the letters that I was learning which eventually led to reading books - books with printed words.

It wasn’t until third grade that we learned multiplication and cursive writing or penmanship. From then on we were to write in cursive.

This was YEARS before anyone had access to computers. I took typing in high school and dreaded test days because they were timed and each typing error knocked points off your “speed” grade!

I worked as a typesetter at the newspaper and became accurate typing by the word rather than by the letter. To the point that I could tell if I’d typed “teh” rather than “the” as I typed along and could correct it without having the editor mark it for correction. I haven’t a clue how fast I can type now, it doesn’t matter.

It was when my daughter was in fifth grade I believe that she brought home a paper printout of a computer keyboard to practice on. They had computer classes in junior high. Today, kids are introduced to keyboards in elementary school.

But I still use cursive. My signature, filling in checks while paying bills, and writing letters to my penpal in Maryland. I once wrote a letter to my son while he was at church camp, he had to get one of the girls to read the letter to him (that was his claim, but I wondered if it was just to get the girls attention).

My handwriting was not great, but I realized that after my son was taught to write cursive, he hadn’t had continuing penmanship classes like I had. I asked him when he stopped writing in cursive, he admitted that by fifth grade he was out of the habit. You should see the “signature” he developed for legal documents, because a signature can’t be printed - it doesn’t have to be legible either, it seems.

I liked learning cursive writing. It flows, one letter to the next, you dot the “i” and cross the “t” after you’ve finished the word and pick the pen or pencil up from the paper.

Cursive does “slow you down”, but approaching a letter or document with thought also slows you down.

And it’s much more personal than a quickly typed text or email. I’ve heard that there are some states (maybe only one) that are requiring cursive penmanship in schools again. Those students will not have problems writing should the apocalyptic threats in movies actually happen.

We’d have to go back to the “dark ages” if we could only type on manual (not electric) typewriters.