Think that handwriting is an antiquated skill that should be ditched as a pedagogical endeavor? You're not alone. As keyboarding rolled over handwriting as the primary way to convey text, educators began to call for ending the exercise of training in cursive; this year, for example, the Indiana Department of Education eliminated handwriting instruction as a mandatory element of the state curriculum altogether. (Michigan's standards appear to still include cursive training.) But the pushback has started, based on evidence that handwriting instruction develops the brain and improves confidence and grades, not to mention the invaluable advantage of enabling the reading of historical texts (including letters from grandparents). And for whatever it's worth, there's the anecdotal evidence of a law professor who says that handwritten bluebooks are better written than keyboarded bluebooks.
HT: Utne
