Cursing Cursive
Did you know that cursive handwriting had become a culture war issue? I didn’t, until I read this NYT story. I didn’t even know that kids weren’t being taught to write cursive anymore. Turns out, though, that attempts to revive cursive are part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy:
Noelle Mapes, a third-grade teacher at a public school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said the agenda to include cursive classes “feels like a big nostalgia move.”
“I’m a millennial teacher, so it almost feels like a boomer effort,” she said.
The practice was helpful when teaching children with occupational therapy needs or fine motor skill needs. But requiring cursive is not a good use of time, she said, especially because schools and teachers face more urgent demands.
“Add typing skills, anti-racist pedagogy, add activism skills, add digital literacy,” she said. “There are so many other things.”
How can you teach third graders how to write cursive when you have to teach them how to be Social Justice Warriors? I mean, really, shouldn’t we be teaching nine-year-olds how to navigate this kind of landscape (a friend in Boston just e-mailed this)?
Seriously, though, would you want your child in a classroom led by that Mapes nut? No, I didn’t think so.