To the editor: Gustavo Arellano's column about his traumatic experience learning cursive in second grade brought back memories.
More than 40 years ago, my son's fourth-grade teacher complained about his indecipherable chicken scratches. I was told that she will never have good handwriting, so she should teach him to type.
I followed his advice. I bought a typing manual, taped the keys of our old electric typewriter, and sat it down for one lesson a day for a month.
He went on to get his PhD in computer science at UC Berkeley and is the fastest typist I know.
Teaching elementary students to type is infinitely more valuable to them than forcing them to duplicate the anachronistic writing style so prized a century ago. There was a time when it was important to be able to write in cursive, but that's gone.
Requiring cursive instruction in public schools is a shameful waste of valuable class time. Furthermore, typing is a skill that young people acquire easily; It doesn't take years of constant practice to master it.
Janet Weaver, Huntington Beach
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To the editor: I'm really sorry that Arellano had a bad experience learning cursive as a child. But that doesn't correlate with eliminating the curriculum that has been shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language, working memory, and abstract thinking.
Are we now going to eliminate learning a foreign language because most of the world speaks English? Or eliminate learning math because computers can do it for us?
We have already dismantled art in our schools, which was the only other link to a form of written expression since computers took over our classrooms and taught the world to do everything at the speed of light.
I am grateful that my fast-moving son was taught cursive. He was horrible at it, but in the whirlwind of his accelerated upbringing, it was a rare moment that slowed him down, the benefits of which manifested themselves years later.
Anna Faye, Santa Monica
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To the editor: To teach or not to teach cursive is just another pendulum swing in education.
I do not consider teaching cursive and addressing other important topics in public education to be mutually exclusive. In my opinion, it is a useful skill and students should not be deprived of acquiring it.
However, since there are many other forms of written communication today, learning cursive does not have to be as important as it has been in the past.
I think the real lesson that can be learned from Arellano's experience is to never humiliate a child. Or a person of any age.
Barbara Douglas, Santa Monica
