It was kind of a foregone conclusion, given the ubiquity of computer-crap all over all of our lives, but some schools are beginning to simply skip teaching cursive writing at all.
http://www.ktla.com/...
INDIANAPOLIS—
Starting this fall, schools in Indiana won't have to teach kids how to write in cursive.
Until now, kids started learning cursive handwriting in 2nd grade; but state education officials say computers and web books have made cursive a relic of the past; so it won't be required any more.
Local school districts can still teach it if they want; but the state says it's more important to teach kids good keyboard skills.
Obviously there's a lot of space in between a few Indiana schools and the extinction of cursive writing - but that appears to be the trajectory schools are getting onto.
This makes sense to me. The last time I needed to write in cursive was about 15 years ago, taking the GRE math subject test. They had a boilerplate honesty pledge printed, which the test-taker had to reproduce in cursive on the form. Even back then, I had forgotten so much of my cursive writing skill (never that great in the first place) that I almost didn't finish that simple-sounding test pre-requisite before the test proper began. No joke: it turned out to be the most stressful part of the damned test: "sonofabitch how do I make a capital Q???? I DIDN'T FUCKING STUDY FOR THIS!!!??!?!"
But I'm, confident there will be a certain amount of folks who emo out and fell all "zomg this is the beginning of the end of CULTURE ITSELF". These would generally be the same folks who can't stand reading things in electronic formats, due to their bourgeois addiction to the sublime and ineffable sensations to be had from the scent of a aged leather-bound tome.
My feeling is that such folks need to let go of their Luddite Legend Of The Seeker fantasies, and join us in the 21st century.
Any other thoughts on this eventual large-scale change in US educational practices?