Feb
19
2015
Forgetting the Former Things
Posted in Daily Living 6 Comments
I couldn’t wait to learn cursive writing.
This type of writing was something you had to be old enough to do.
Cursive writing was not taught until third grade.
In my mind, third grade couldn’t come fast enough.
I knew that I would need a special tablet of paper.
I knew that I could even have a fountain pen with its own ink cartridge.
I was ready to turn simple block letters into an art form.
I looked over the cursive letters on the back of the tablet and traced them with my fingers.
The Palmer Method it was called.
I remember distinctly that I would have a choice when I made the small letter T.
I could simply cross the T, as I would do if I wrote that letter within a word.
Or I could make a mark that seemed to extend off the end of the letter.
I chose the latter way of writing my T’s.
It was more creative.
It was like Anne Shirley from Green Gables: ANNE with an E.
It was a unique touch I couldn’t wait to master.
I remember being disappointed that I did not have any T’s in my name.
It didn’t matter, since there were T’s in so many other words.
I traced and practiced and got myself ready.
September came that year and I was finally in third grade.
I remember the exercises we had to do to get our hands ready to write.
We had to draw continuous circles across the line.
We had to make sure that the circles were drawn counter-clockwise.
If we did our line of circles correctly, it looked like a tunnel.
There was a favorite toy that most of us had as children.
It was a collapsible tunnel.
It was almost like a Slinky you could climb through.
I wanted my line of circles to look just like that.
We practiced the alphabet over and over.
We practiced our circles.
All of our homework was expected to be in cursive.
If it was not neat and legible, it needed to be done over.
Handwriting mattered.
No one printed their letters any more.
It was a sign of maturity to have graduated to cursive writing.
I was growing up.
To this day, I always write in cursive and make my T’s in that special way.
In fact, I do not like to print my letters at all.
Printing does not flow.
Printing does not glide across the page.
Imagine that twenty-six letters, just twenty-six, can make any word we want to write.
It is astounding to think that no two people have the same handwriting.
It intrigues me that much can be known about us by studying our handwriting.
Cursive writing celebrates our uniqueness.
I thought of all of this when I read something that someone posted on Facebook.
The post made me pause.
The post caused me to ponder the truth behind the words.
The post made me so glad that cursive writing was such a vital part of my education.
Kids who can’t read cursive handwriting can’t read historic documents.
The post was written to gather support for cursive writing in the curriculum.
I found myself thinking about cursive writing in a totally different way.
Take cursive writing out of a child’s education and you actually limit them.
Original source documents would be illegible.
Imagine seeing our founding documents and not being able to read them.
John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration of Independence would be foreign to us.
We would never be able to appreciate the time and the effort it took to write by hand.
We would never be able to imagine the quill going across the paper.
Hopefully, there is not a systematic effort to remove cursive writing from education.
Hopefully, cursive writing will not become a lost art.
Cursive writing must never be seen as drudgery.
Cursive writing should be seen as a vital link to our past.
In our data driven, computer saturated society we want speed and efficiency.
We type more than we write.
The handwriting of many is atrocious and illegible.
Chicken scratch was the term I grew up hearing to describe poor penmanship.
Cursive writing, letter writing, and calligraphy seem to be falling by the wayside.
If the quote I read is correct, we will be raising a generation who has forgotten.
A generation who cannot read from the original documents themselves.
A generation who will E-sign important papers without ever actually signing their name.
We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done. He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which He commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget His deeds but would keep His commands. They would not be like their forefathers – a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to Him. (Psalm 78:4-8)
Going forward with technological advancements does not mean that we forget.
We must not leave the past behind us, thinking of it as something nice and quaint.
We need to rid ourselves of a that was then, this is now mentality.
We must build on the foundations that were set in place.
Advancing but not forgetting.
We are the keepers of what came before.
We are the ones who will pass it on to our children.
We are to train our children to be thinkers not learners.
We have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16)
We must see the value in building on what came before without losing what came before.
Once lost, it would be terribly hard to get it back again.
Are you ready to do a little cursive writing today?
Well said — and what a horrifying thought that future generations could lose the ability to use original source documents! I’ve always taken great pride in having good penmanship and recently have had several “young” people comment on how beautiful it is an dhow they wish their writing looked that good. I can’t help but think that it is because we see so much printed and that the emphasis in school is on using a keyboard. I’m all for computers — I love mine to pieces and find that I can keep up with my train of thought better sometime when I’m using one. But when I really want to write creatively or when I want to ponder the words more deeply — there’s nothing like holding a pen or pencil in my hand so that there is that tactile connection to the paper.
Christine,
It is the stillness and the pondering that is so desperately missing from today’s culture. No one seems to take the time for their heart to catch up. You are quite right about the tactile connection. We must do all we can to ensure that this style of writing will not be lost for future generations.
Gina
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Thank you Craig for including my post on your blog. I am glad that there are others who see the importance of preserving this style of writing so that we do not lose the ability to read our founding documents for ourselves.
Gina
I’m with you, Gina! I think cursive is important! If you want to write in a “stream of consciousness” way, you must have that connection between your head and your hand. I, too, was so glad to learn cursive and be a “grown-up”. You can tell a lot about someone by their handwriting. I read some books on it and it was fascinating that you could tell someone’s personality (even if they were devious) by the way they formed their letters. It was true for everyone I analyzed. As an amateur genealogist, I love to see the old records on Ancestry.com, and of course all are in cursive (sometimes hard to read, though!) I hope it continues to be taught; sometimes the old ways are better than the new ones, and shouldn’t be eliminated by “technology”.
Sue,
I agree that there must be a connection between your head and your hand. A keyboard is not the same thing. We are more intentional when we write in our own hand. We pour a bit of ourselves into our writing. We must do what we can to make sure that this type of writing is not a dying art.
Gina