Earlier this month, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law a bipartisan bill that requires public schools in his state to teach cursive. This came hot on the heels of outgoing New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s similar measure just weeks before. These states join about two dozen others that require cursive instruction, marking another victory in the war against Chromebooks and their pesky keyboards.
Everyone seems happy about this development. It will, apparently, help students feel more connected to our founding documents, which were written in cursive. Kids will grow up knowing how to sign their names on important legal documents, which they’ll appreciate when the time comes to take out a mortgage. Even better, cognitive science research suggests that kids will learn better via cursive. What’s not to like?
The problem is that none of these claims stands up to scrutiny.
State Representative Dane Watro, one of the cosponsors of the Pennsylvania bill, argues that cursive “connects us to our history, strengthens learning and deepens our understanding of the world.” Former Governor Murphy, for his part, said that by learning cursive, students will be given “the skills they need to read our nation’s founding documents.” On its face, this argument makes some sense. The Constitution, for example, conjures images of a large sheet of parchment with flowery cursive letters. Similarly, John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration of Independence is likely seared into your brain—it is mine—as a proudly cursive signature bookended by a great looping J and k.
But this is an overly simplistic understanding of our nation’s founding documents. For one thing, the copy of the Declaration of Independence on display at the National Archives is not in cursive but in print. It is an archaic form of print, to be sure, where the letter s sometimes looks like the letter f, but it is print all the same.
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . .”—that’s the beginning of the preamble to the Constitution, rendered in plain, modern typeface suitable for an online publication. Nothing about the way it’s written changes the meaning of the words. That’s what students should be grappling with, not the intricacies of the cursive words that even most adults probably can’t decipher. When students encounter the Constitution, it’s good for them to see what the original looked like, but they don’t need to read it in its original handwriting to appreciate the genius of its content.
Cursive’s proponents also argue for its utility for students to be able to sign documents when they’re adults. Rep. Watro of Pennsylvania again explains his theory: Knowing cursive has practical benefits, including “signing checks and legal papers [and] adding a personal touch to letters,” making it “relevant in everyday life.” Similarly, New Jersey Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson said that “knowing how to sign your name on documents like mortgages and bank papers is an essential life skill.”
Once again, these arguments fail to convince the skeptic. For one thing, you don’t need to know cursive to sign your name. Most important signatures these days happen electronically with an app like DocuSign. For documents that still require a signature by hand, usually a printed name, initials, or even scrawls that vaguely resemble cursive suffice without anyone blinking an eye. My stepdad’s first and last name is comprised of 13 letters. As a financial advisor, he has signed his name hundreds of thousands of times with a loop that sort of looks like a D followed by a short and unintelligible squiggle. Every signature looks like he had a stroke in the middle of it—nothing is legible. And nobody cares. He has never been audited for his non-cursive-like signature. No bank has ever rejected a loan he’s asked for on the grounds of his illegible signature. The only pushback he gets is from me, who is just amused.
As for adding a personal touch to letters? I lament the decline in old-fashioned letter-writing as much as the next guy, but you don’t need to scratch out your message in cursive for it to have a personal touch. Just taking the time to write by hand—even in print—shows you care.
Finally, the apologists’ argument that cursive has cognitive benefits for students seems to be most compelling. Rep. Watro mentions that “writing in cursive activates brain regions tied to memory, language and critical thinking.” Former Governor Murphy cites “cognitive benefits” almost as an afterthought, as if it were a given that cursive improves students’ cognition and memory. Pre-empting critics, New Jersey Assemblywoman Rosy Bagolie insists that “Cursive writing is not about nostalgia—it’s about development.”
Bagolie’s next sentence is telling: “From a learning-science perspective, handwriting engages neural pathways connected to literacy, attention, and memory. Research shows that handwriting instruction supports writing fluency and learning, particularly when students are developing foundational literacy skills.” What’s missing here? Or this from New Jersey Senator Shirley Turner, who makes the same omission: “Studies show again and again that writing by hand enhances learning by improving reading, comprehension, memory, fine motor, and critical thinking skills.”
