by Lawrence Burke

A 21^st Century Context

In the 1997 Sci‐Fic classic Gattaca key themes and ideas around reproductive and design technologies and their effects on the societies of the future are explored. The manipulation of our DNA is now a reality and although the movie was made 16 years ago the subject of eugenics, along with the manipulation of our identities through digitalized augmented realities is a feature of life in the early years of the 21^st century. In a case of life imitating art, in 2009, a Chinese woman was arrested attempting to enter Japan after having her fingerprints manipulated through surgery to avoid detection on the Japanese Immigration department’s data base (Heussner, 2009). Her extreme actions seemed to embody aspects of the bizarre evolution of human kind in Gattaca, turning herself into a partially designed creature like Vincent Freeman, reliant only upon how he’s programmed to think, act and behave through his DNA and being forced to go to extreme measures to live in an augmented, manipulated reality.

How far have we progressed towards this brave new world of science and bio‐ technology to manipulate and co‐create our identities? From my perspective as an educator there are some subtle and quite deceptive developments occurring in ways which are passed off as essential skills in the development and education of future generations. One in particular is the replacement of handwriting, in particular cursive writing, with keyboard skills‐argued as a necessary 21^st century teaching skill. Leaving aside the misnomer of 21^st century skills, the decline in teaching cursive writing and its deliberate and purposeful elimination from school standards and the curricula in the developed world is a cause for concern. Cursive writing has an essential role in supporting the development of key components in our cognitive, affective and psycho‐motor domains of learning. It is also one of the last remaining vestiges of our right to a private, unique identifier‐our personalized hand written signature.

Recently the United States Education Department announced through its updated teaching standards that cursive writing as a key literacy skill was no longer a requirement in its public school teaching standards and has been replaced by keyboard skills seen by many as the natural evolution of cursive and manuscript handwriting. Notwithstanding the shortsightedness and unawareness of the essential role of cursive writing within the foundations of literacy this move has been supported by a number of key influential educators at the highest levels within public service sector of the United States government. It is also supported by individual educators like Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education who argues that just as we got rid of the abacus and slide rule it’s time to get rid of cursive writing (Live Science.com, 2013). To argue that the abacus is an obsolete and irrelevant learning tool is profoundly naïve and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of this extraordinary aid for mathematical computation. A highly skilled and proficient operator of this piece of technology can operate at the same speed as someone adding or subtracting on a calculator. In addition the abacus is used today to support and scaffold the learning of visually impaired students in Braille schools because of the limitations of the ‘talking calculator’ which proved inadequate as an auditory learning device for visually impaired students. It’s also still widely used in China, Japan and parts of the Middle East. In addition it may be for some their preferred choice of technology over an electronic calculator. It’s staggering how a governmental body charged with overseeing educational standards, along with individuals in the field of education can make such claims without any understanding of the essential role kinesthetic learning holds in the scaffolding and supporting of the learning processes for individuals.

Literacies as the Foundation of Education

Generally speaking teaching and learning is defined by multiple processes in literacies in the 21^st century and is not defined purely through digitized learning. For example following the initial introduction of a course/unit /module of learning where the overall aims and learning outcomes are explored and explained each lesson begins with an outline of what the intended learning outcomes are for that specific class. This is what I term informed communicative literacy development. This is further enhanced through extension activities and evaluations of the lesson content as an integral part of the lesson review or closure. In addition teaching and learning incorporates multiple literacies aside from the content. For example learning to write cursively requires the development of fine motor skills, and its theory and content help to develop the social and emotional skills of patience and perseverance‐essential life skills for all learners.

Lesson content developed from appropriate curriculum and syllabus documents includes learning which is targeted at the ability levels of the students in the class. Initially a teacher may have to experiment, get feedback from her/his students on what is engaging and workable and what isn’t. Essentially teaching and learning is a practical, hands on social and communicative process in which learners participate in the overall planning of how they will learn. It is a functional, communicative literacy. Students will only be actively engaged with their learning if they are challenged appropriately and in an engaging manner. For example learning to write with an interactive white board where cursive letters are created and practiced in a variety if styles, colors and densities engages a variety of intelligence not only limited to kinesthetic learning but also to the visual, spatial, affective and cognitive domains. These kinds of literacies of ‘learning by doing’ may be used across subjects and disciplines.

The intimate Art of Learning to Write

Cursive writing is an essential literacy skill which not only provides the foundation for narrative writing throughout a child’s education and later under examination conditions, but it also serves quintessentially to link the body, mind and spirit in one activity. It is a masterful example of integrated learning using a variety of intelligence. It is a combination of physical and mental functions. The writer must intellectualize a sound, link it with a symbol and then initiate a psycho‐motor activity. It is a profound extraordinary combination of mind, body and spirit learning to work together. Berry captures this symbiotic relationship beautifully:

Language is the most intimately physically of all artistic means We have it palpably in our mouth; it is our langue, our tongue. Writing it, we shape it with our hands. Reading aloud what we have written‐as we must do, if we are writing carefully – our language passes in at the eyes, out of the mouth, in at the ears; the words are immersed and steeped in the senses of the body before they make sense in the mind. They cannot make sense in the mind until they have made sense in the body. Does shaping one’s words with one’s own hands impart character and quality to them, as does speaking them with one’s own tongue to the satisfaction of one’s own ear?…I believe it does (Berry, 1990, p. 192)

Such a reflective and philosophical insight into writing helps us understand how a child’s developing sense of subjectivity and objectivity is formed through the process of them becoming fully literate in their language and culture. They are acquiring an essential skill to differentiate between a spoken language and a written language. Recognizing a letter on a keyboard and touching it do not produce the same intricate and integrated development of the affective, cognitive and psycho‐motor domains in a child’s or a student’s holistic development. It is a disembodied, mechanistic process in denial of the satisfaction to be derived from creating a narrative no matter the level of ability and achievement. Berry continues:

In using computers writers are flirting with a radical separation of mind and body, the elimination of the work from the work of the mind. The text on the computer screen, and the computer print out too, has a sterile, untouched, factory made look…the body does not work like that. The body characterizes everything it touches. What it makes it traces over with the marks of its pulses and breathing, its excitements, hesitations, flaws and mistakes… and to those of us who love and honor the life of the body of this world, these marks are precious things, the necessities of life.(Berry, 1990, p. 194)

It needs to be remembered that as verbal communication is learned through exposure to its unique sounds and intuitive resonances it becomes quite instinctual for a child to recall, learn and reproduce these into a coherent audible language. The same cannot be said of learning to write words. Written language is an invented construct and is an intrinsic art form unique to humankind. It has yet to be mimicked by animals and other creatures and it has not yet been perfected through any kind of technology. Critics of this argument may disagree as there are a number of software programs and downloadable apps which can either support those who are already literate writers or re‐present manuscript and cursive script for those who are semi‐literate writers‐these are the great digital impersonators of this learned human skill. When we consider technology’s ability to decipher the cursive script it becomes apparent how difficult this is to achieve along with an ability to replicate it. Microsoft’s cursive handwriting recognizer is an example of one such attempt to understand the why, how and what humans’ write. It collected millions of writing samples across multiple languages and from a cross section of human beings from KG to the retired and elderly who have long since left formal education of any kind, yet its program still only gives a limited selection of letters or words from a list of possibilities. It is very much a guessing game lacking accuracy, fluency and credibility (Pittman, 2006).

Hand Writing in an Historical Context

The development of hand writing as an essential skill has always been subject to the constraints of the various ideologies which emerged and dominated the educative and cultural discourse of its time. Its early appearance as a literacy skill was often seen as an attempt to have everyone conform to a certain style of writing, yet in reality it was about legibility and being able to communicate with accuracy and fluency in a written word mode that was recognizable, readable and accessible to all, thereby ensuring everyone became a fully literate member of one’s culture and society. It was taught as an essential skill up until the 1960s until the emergence of that amorphous vague method of teaching literacy called the ‘whole language approach’. Around this time the formal teaching of cursive script fell into disrepute and decline along with similar key literacy skills. Between1967 and 1982 verbal reasoning and math skills in the SATs fell by almost 30% in the United States (Peterson, 2003, Vol. 3 No. 2). While there’s been some improvement in verbal reason and math skills discursive writing has never recovered fully and there are millions of people today who can only print in manuscript while many more who are not fully literate and cannot read cursive script. Recently, it was reported that during the trial of George Zimmerman, the white adult accused of shooting the black teenager Trayvon Martin, a witness when asked to read a letter in court replied that she couldn’t read cursive script (Live Science.com, 2013).

The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard

Graham in his insightful and well‐argued essay asserts that handwriting as a literacy skill not only improves students’’ writing ability but supports the development of the “quantity and quality “of the writing (Graham, Winter 2009‐2010). He further claims that if children cannot form letters with any reasonable accuracy, speed and legibility they cannot translate the language from their minds into a written form (Graham, Winter 2009‐2010). Others may argue that by playing with an iPad app in KG or using a word processor in Grade 1 and so on, a child will develop the requisite skill to write. But this is a false supposition, because the evidence of how we learn does not bear out the assumption. When a small child learns to write they experience their writing instrument as an extension of themselves. Their ability to fully differentiate the tool, task and mind, body dichotomy isn’t fully cognizant to them, but as they are tutored and guided in developing the finesse required of the written word, like Barret, they’ll soon come to know what it means to be an extension of the writing implement in their grasp:

“My language is a region of Being I inhabit. And here the comparison of language to a tool falls short. I do not use my language in a way I use a keyboard. With this simple sentence the whole elaborate model of language as an instrument and nothing but an instrument crashes to the ground. Familiar as my keyboard might be, intimately as I may know the touch and feel its keys, it still stands external to my life in a way that my language does not. I shall soon replace this keyboard – its keys have begun to stick‐and it will be forgotten. My last expiring thoughts assuming I am still conscious will be in my language” (Barret, 1979, p. 173)

Learning to write requires a child to connect sounds, symbols and thoughts into an internal dialogue of coherent patterns which are able to generate an organized set of ideas which can be reproduced on paper. Even an iPad app or a CALL software program will only be able to mimic this complex affective, psycho‐motor and cognitive function up to a point‐it cannot enter a child’s mind to over‐write the child’s own neuro‐linguistic circuitry and programming.

Handwriting, in particular cursive writing is a complex performance indicator of the proper functioning of psycho‐motor and bio‐mechanical process which tell us the level and ability of a child’s developmental process (Bouwien, Smits, & Van Galen, 1997). It requires an extended time for learning and practice for a child to become proficient, competent and literate in the skill. Given that the teaching and learning of the dexterity of handwriting takes place over several years of a child’s development it must compete with exposure to other external and internal forces and phenomena vying for the child’s attention. Today these distraction center around passive edutainment and online activity which is favored over pro‐ active longer periods of active learning which promote healthy neurological development. Cris Rowan, the world renowned Canadian Occupational therapist warns of the life time debilitating effects this is having on children. Among her staggering statistics it is claimed that elementary aged children spend up to 7.5 hours per day in combined technology use and that “Baby TV” occupies 2.2 hours per day for the 0‐2 year old populations (Rowan, 2013). Her compelling argument that a child’s developing sensory systems have not evolved biologically to integrate the sedentary and tumultuous nature of 21^st century technological changes has a profound impact on understanding the struggle for children today to master the basics of the foundations of literacy (Rowan, 2013). According to Rowan there’s a causal link between the new dis‐eases such as attention‐deficit/hyper‐activity, coordination and sensory processing disorders and sound, stable neurological development which facilitates the development of key literacy skills including handwriting whether it be manuscript or cursive writing.

Literacy, as Gentry and Graham point out is the very foundation of education (Gentry & Graham, 2010). They’re not talking about the new ‘literacies’ such as digital literacies, media literacies, information literacies and so on which hitherto would not exist without the foundations of literacy such as reading writing and numeracy. Rather they accurately and correctly argue that literacy, specifically the skill of handwriting provides the scaffolding to letter naming, along with phonemic and word deciphering as the core literacy skills are developed (Gentry & Graham, 2010). This evidence along with research which show us that handwriting is intrinsically linked to key cognitive functions such as storing and retrieving information in memory, manipulating letters and linking them to sounds makes a compelling argument not to discontinue the teaching of cursive writing.

In the 1996 dramatic film The Crucible moments before John Proctor (played by the inimitable Daniel Day‐Lewis) is executed he is asked why he won’t repent and sign a legal statement admitting to witchcraft and sorcery. His reply is that all he has is his good name and as such it will remain so even after his death because he will not admit to something which is a lie. For John Proctor a cursive written signature is a powerful determiner of his identity in the 17^th century. Several hundred years later it remains so for millions of generations up until the early years of the 21^st century. Cursive signatures written by hand are our identifier. We develop them as children, play with them, experiment with them and even try to match one another’s as closely as possible‐playfully yet unintentionally acting out our little forgeries as if waiting to be caught. In real life we sign our school documents and college applications, job contracts and driver’s licenses and ID cards. Our cursive signatures open and close our bank accounts, allow withdrawing and depositing funds; we sign our deeds, bills, loans and our passports to prove who we are. It’s one of our last vestiges of privacy unique to who we are in an age where privacy is viewed as no longer a civil virtue and right, but more of a trait of those with something to hide. Our cursive signatures appear soon to be lost to an age of digital mediocrity unless cursive handwriting is rescued and reinstated as a core standard in our school curricula.

References

Barret, W. (1979). The Illusion of Technique. New York: Doubleday.

Berry, W. (1990). What are People For? San Francisco: North Point Press.

Bouwien, C., Smits, e., & Van Galen, G. P. (1997). Dysgraphia in Children: Lasting Psychomotor Deficiency or Transient Developmental Delay? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Vol. 67 , 164‐184.

Gentry, R., & Graham, S. (2010, Fall). Creating Better Readers and Writers. Saperstein Associates , pp. 2‐ 15.

Graham, S. (Winter 2009‐2010). Want to Improve Children’s Writing? American Educator , 20‐40.

Heussner, K. I. (2009, December 11). Surgically Altered Fingerprints Help Woman Evade Immigration . Retrieved December 11, 2013, from ABC News. com: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/surgically‐altered‐fingerprints‐woman‐evade‐ immigration/story?id=9302505

Live Science.com. (2013, June 28). Is cursive writing dead? Retrieved from Live Science.com:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is‐cursive‐writing‐dead/

Peterson, P. (2003, Vol. 3 No. 2, Spring). Ticket to Nowhere. Education Next , 1‐8.

Pittman, J. (2006, February 14). Microsoft’s Cursive Handwriting Recognizer. Redmond, WA 98052‐6399, United States of America.

Rowan, C. (2013, May 29). The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child . Sechelt,, British Columbia,, Canada.