Over, under, pencil down, keep between the lines. Repeat.
Oh, how I remember those cursive lessons, third grade, C.E. Rose Elementary.
While my classmates were outside at recess playing dodge ball or Red Rover, Red Rover, here was I, stuck in an empty classroom, struggling to master the difference between a small “g” and a small “q.”
Penmanship detention went on for how long I don’t remember. Long enough that my teacher finally gave up. John Hancock I would never be. Yet somehow, I managed to make it through school, turning in book reports, essays, even term papers.
Slowing down, I learned, made the illegible legible. Barely.
Taking notes in class was another matter, especially in college. Remember, this was years before electronic notepads. But we did, thank God, have the typewriter.
I was a senior in high school before I took my first typing class. “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” instantly became my lifesaver. On an old Underwood that must have first been used by Nellie Bly, I pounded out everything from editorials for the school newspaper to columns for the weekly high school page this very paper once supported.
The ability to type also got me a part-time job in college, where my boss even allowed me to use his state-of-the-art IBM Selectric for term papers. After I became a reporter, it was back to pen and notepad. Luckily, most of my stories were not deadline, so I was able to transpose my notes to the computer before they became total gibberish.
These days most of my written communication is done via email. But I still take pen to paper for grocery lists, Christmas cards, and countless credit card slips.
So it was with some interest that I noted a few weeks back that the Arizona Legislature sent a bill to the governor mandating that students know how to read and write in cursive. A few days later, Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed the bill, noting that students are already learning it. Cursive lives another day.
Good. For once I’m glad that my legislators, so often accused of 19th century thinking, are embracing 19th century teaching methods — at least when it comes to penmanship. Despite the trauma of being kept in at recess, I did benefit from those forced writing exercises. And don’t tell me I could have scrawled out printed notes at the same pace.
On the same day that the news broke about the legislative push for cursive writing, an article came out whose headline read: “Algebra may be hindering US students.” According to The Associated Press, one out of five high schoolers don’t graduate because they failed algebra.
Naturally, educators are all over on this, some arguing that algebra is necessary, others arguing that only a small percentage of jobs require that skill.
Again, I go back to my own mathematical expertise, which probably peaked somewhere between fractions and long division. Needless to say, I was hopeless in algebra, a class I had to pass in order to qualify for college. Thankfully, my algebra teacher, who was also the track coach — weren’t they always? — gave me a mercy pass.
Once in college I had to choose: two semesters of math or two semesters of science. I chose science, in this case, botany. We toured the campus landscapes, mastered Mendel’s pea principles, and learned how to dissect a peanut. To this day, I still know the inner part of a peanut is called the cotyledon. Beats x-y=3 any day.
