From Google.
Pen and ink, gliding along a pure page of white, cool to the touch. I wonder at the pains it took to compose a letter, a diary entry, a book in the not-so-distant past. I think of our founders in Philadelphia, their pens scratching parchment to give us our freedom and then I wonder at the new kind of freedom these some hundreds years later where we barely eke out our thoughts and touch a keyboard and there they are for all the world to eternally see.
I wonder, as so many of you do, what the keyboard and IPhone and its ilk will mean to the personal signature. I like my signature. My name on a line in my very own style and script, set to rise to the beat of the pen in my hand. Sometimes bold, sometimes shaky, always my own imprint. Have you ever signed a consent for your own emergency surgery just minutes before being wheeled to the operating room? Pain, fear, uncertainty – and your very own John Hancock? I looked at mine once, in those timely moments before being anesthetized, and it was there, apprehensive and frail and tentative, but, it was mine, definitely mine and it carried the coding of years and years of Palmer perfect penmanship.
What will signatures look like as time goes by? How will our children’s children be defined? Children have a way of marking their character long before adults recognize it, but I do wonder how will they make their mark?
Image from Google.
. . . and what brought this about? My Mrs. Thurston post and conversations about learning to connect the letters together, aka handwriting, penmanship, cursive, that childhood rite-of-passage that so many of us of a certain age can remember.
From Google.
I loved forming o’s and the drill that followed connecting them rhythmically across the page and especially loved the mmmmmmm’s and nnnnnnnnnn’s and those special Palmer r’s, with the little crook atop and long sweep down to hang perhaps an s upon.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
No idea of what I’m talking about? Try writing the letters above and string them together and see what happens. A word? A sentence? A signature?
Really want to have some fun? Try using pen and ink, but don’t blame me for ruining your manicure.
Lifeonthecutoff's Blog 
Our school teaches cursive in second grade. It is no longer the round curly-q letters that we were taught, but the clipped letters of Zaner-Blozer. After 2nd grade there is no formal training because they won’t purchase books, but most of us incorporate handwriting along with our spelling lessons. Many grades no longer require students to write in cursive. Those students have problems reading cursive. We also get children from other districts that learned D’Nealian (sp) which is a combination of manuscript and cursive. I’m afraid handwriting is becoming a lost art. It’s just one more instance of less individuality. I enjoy children with distinctive handwriting.
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I, too, enjoy children’s distinctive handwriting. Their individualism. I would think that handwriting would need to be incorporated into spelling so that one would know if they are correct. Dare I ask if kids can spell these days.
Thank you, Janet, for being a good teacher and shepherding children from year to year.
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How do people sign official documents if they can’t write cursive? Does everyone just print?
It’s still very nice to get a handwritten note.
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I love a handwritten note, delivered via the USPS or dropped in my mailbox.
Those that haven’t learned cursive probably just print it.
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I am a part of the generation where cursive has, in a way, died out. I learned it in grade school, with much excitement, but as I moved up in school a few years, we were no longer required to write in cursive and eventually, I stopped. For me, printing was easier. Much to my mother’s dismay, I realized when teaching children a few years ago, that I didn’t even remember how to write many of the letters. I spent a lot of time that year practicing the writing, but it never looked as nice as my print. I admit that I struggle to read cursive at times (though some people are just not very neat in their writing). I still sign my name in cursive and could put together words and sentences that would pass the test, if needed, but I am afraid that I am an example of this lost art.
However, I would say that my individuality is equally expressed though my own style of print, which I happen to like, and is it’s own art form. So I would encourage anyone that our children can still express their individuality through print, just in a different and less romantic way than through cursive.
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I remember how much your wanted to learn “krueslive”! You had the benefit of learning both. You now have a very distinctive printing style that is uniquely yours. There are some people with such poor handwriting that it is a chore to read what they have written, but, oh your grandfather and my Uncle George – what beautiful handwriting they had, with their own flourishes, and such a straight line. They had what I would call handsome writing.
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My father usually printed and it was very distinctive, I’m not worried about children who print, but those only use the printing that comes from something electronic. I guess, though at one time teachers thought it was just too easy for children who used pencil or pen and paper instead of chalk on a slate. I have to face it times are changing.
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I wonder if your father had a more technical type of handwriting.
I think the technological age is having the same type of impact on society as the industrial revolution. New schools don’t even have chalkboards – they are usually white boards. Changes have been coming mighty fast, haven’t they?
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Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.
I was thinking about those of us who learned some sort of penmanship – some way of connecting the letters – and how we each came up with our own individual style and interpretation of what we learned. Here’s my hope – that children are learning to write with their hands so that they can develop their own style and sense of self and that they can also learn to read what has been written in cursive so that they will be able to read whatever papers we leave behind.
For some, the advent of word processing is a miracle tool. Those that have poor handwriting and whose script is indecipherable and for those who have a disability that doesn’t allow them to write.
To all – thanks for reading me.
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