Cursive vs non-cursive penmanship

The pandemic of Covid-19 startles the humanity out of slumber to embrace innovation for its survival on this earth.

The journey from the keyboard of the typewriter to the keypad of the android mobile phone has revolutionised human life as the world now is just a click away. The unlimited knowledge opens before man to quench his thirst to know the unknown. But alas, the education system particularly in the developing countries remains insular to this rapid advancement. The students, however, spend more time on the keypad of their mobile phones — which means their penmanship may metamorphose from cursive to non-cursive style of writing.

Cursive writing is a style of handwriting wherein letters of a word are interconnected by lead-in and lead-out lines. It is written, as in Italics, at a slant angle from the baseline. The origin of cursive writing owes to the use of quill. As it is difficult to lift the quill without blotting ink on the parchment, the continuous stroke of quill becomes unavoidable. Hence letters of the alphabet have to be joined, resulting in cursive writing.

In America, cursive hand at elementary grade schools has become obsolete. If it exists anywhere, it is taught at a higher level. But we act in reverse with blithe disregard to the learning difficulties faced by students. Our utmost effort is focused on teaching cursive starting from kindergarten level while print hand gains traction among college and university students. Being a staple part of primary education, cursive writing is too time consuming, and requires strenuous exercise to ace it. On the other hand, students can easily learn print handwriting as they can copy and trace letters from their primers and textbooks.

Though inkpen and ballpoint pen have replaced the quill, yet cursive writing has resisted the existential threats posed by the printing press courtesy our collective intellectual inertia. In the book Why Nations Fail, the authors point out that the acceptance of the printing press in Europe precipitated the continent’s Renaissance while Muslim nations fond of calligraphy remained stuck to writing books with quill and stylus. Naturally frequency of printed books production was much faster than that of hand written books. It accelerated the dissemination of knowledge across the whole Europe. Muslims are still waiting for their Renaissance. Such is the fallout of not keeping keep pace with the innovation.

It is argued that legibility is higher in the print hand. Block printing on textbooks and cursive writing on notebooks present two different worlds. Students in their early stages face difficulties because of different graphics of letters of the alphabet in cursive writing and printed writing. In the times to come, they would depend on the block writing more as their interactions with it would increase due to online classes, sharing of daily homework diary on mobile phone, requirement of assignments composed on computer and the use of search engines on internet. It is noticed that on average a student spends more time writing on mobile phones and computers than writing on paper.

All of this comes down to the necessity of replacing cursive writing in our classrooms with print writing. It will save students from extra exertion and needless confusion between different formations of the same letter in these two different writing styles. Students with learning aberrations like dyslexia and dysgraphia, who remain unnoticed in our schools, suffer the most in skills like reading, writing and dictation. Traditional schools and instructors being neophobic still force-teach cursive writing to students, oblivious to the overwhelming and rapidly developing digital world.

Cursive handwriting may have its advantages but considering the digitisation of knowledge and its resources, print handwriting is the need of the hour, as the famous adage goes: “Changing rules for the changing needs, and unchanging rules for the unchanging needs.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2023.

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