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Down with gym class!
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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Sometimes advances in technology do mean that things that they teach in school are outdated and can probably safely be removed.
I'd say cursive writing is one of those things. Writing in general is important, and obviously kids need to learn how to write upper case and lower case block letters. But, with computers everywhere, a whole secondary set of characters that is designed to be linked together seems useless.
I also do think that schools probably focus too much on memorization. I absolutely hated history in school because that's how it was taught. Memorize the name of these battles and the dates and then regurgitate them for the test. I didn't actually learn anything meaningful. What would have been much more useful and much more interesting would have been to learn more of the backstory. What was going on in the country that led it to go to war. Were they trying to distract from something, or get the people to unite against a common enemy? Were they supremely confident that they could easily win and gain important territory or resources? Were they backed into a corner?
I'd support not memorizing as many things because it's true that you can look them up (of course, AI is not how you should ever look anything up because it might just 'hallucinate'). I think most teachers would agree. But, it's also a lot harder to write and grade a good test when you're not doing names and dates. So, I assume that's another big part of the reason that memorization is the focus.
You know they don't teach typing anymore either. Yeah Ive got 3 nieces and a nephew. None of them can use a keyboard properly. They type with their index fingers.
However they end up getting the data into the computer, it's still in the computer. Cursive just isn't useful in that world.
I think cursive was designed for feather dipped ink pens so they didn't have to be lifted because that often causes blobs.
It's also something you can learn easily on the side.
I think it's primary benefit is if it's taught to kids, it helps them develop fine motor skills.
We may see a decline in art drawing abilities due to this. (Among other issues that would contribute to this).
Poorer surgeons.
Loss of quality Craftsmanship in many detail oriented fields.
We learn skills like this better as kids.
That's my only real argument why it should still be taught. Kids don't really learn fine motor tool manipulation skills like this in their other activities.
Human hands are one of our greatest strengths. Shame to not develop this better in kids.
I think you're reaching when you think that no cursive writing will mean poorer surgeons. Is there any evidence to back that up, or is it just supposition?
Besides, less time spent on cursive writing could be sent on drawing or painting. Or, the kids could have more time off which they could use to play video games, which give them better hand-eye coordination making them better surgeons later in life.
Yes there is evidence that humans have what is called "sensitive periods" and "critical periods". Defined as specific development time periods where some skills are developed.
"Sensitive periods" are related to "critical periods" although they both sort of mean the same thing but the first one suggests it's possible for some skill acquisition to occur at a later age but just severely restricted whilst critical periods mean the skill cannot be learned after after the cut off. The farther (in time) you move from the sensitive period for a given skill, the harder it becomes to learn it.
Handwriting sensitive period is 2-4.5 but is still developing at a slower rate from 4-8.
If a child has not figured out how to write by 8, they likely will not improve much more beyond the level they are at.
The one for reading is around 11. Kids who haven't grasped how to read, even dyslexic kids, have little chance of catching up to their peers if they haven't caught up by age 11.
I myself was dyslexic but had a great special ed teacher who helped me catch up and then exceed my peers in a 1 year period. I was 6 or 7. If I did not get that extra support before I turned 10-11, I likely never would have learned to read fluently.
This is a big problem now with kids not being able to read. They won't improve much later. The improvement needs to happen young. Before 10.
https://rotel.pressbooks.pub/biologicalpsychology/chapter/sensitive-and-critical-periods-of-development/
I am only hypothesizing that a lack of hand dexterity training early in life can reduce overall dexterity achievement level later.
But I'm not basing this on a hunch. I'm basing it on what we know of sensitive and critical development periods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period
Wikipedia lacks a lot of info on this so I suggest the first link if you are curious to learn more about this.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5851374/
The effect of fine motor skills on handwriting legibility in preschool age children
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=cursive+writing+dexterity&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14#d=gs_qabs&t=1774580867397&u=%23p%3D2Az7DrfEQUIJ
Effect of Basketball Dribbling Practice on Cursive Handwriting of Primary School Children
When did you go to school? I don't think I'd consider everything about the education I received to be ideal but by the time I was in high school it was very much not about memorisation and history in particular was taught basically exactly like what you described as what you would have preferred it to have been.
Cursive was interesting. I went to a lot of schools because my family moved around a lot. In Primary school, in the 90s cursive was inconsistently taught, and inconsistently valued and by the time I had reached the 6th grade it was simply considered obsolete and sometimes even actively prohibited because they wanted you to dispense with the idea.
As I moved to new schools around this time I noticed nobody else did cursive, also my cursive looked bad since I hadn't really mastered it and also been taught about 3 or 4 different varieties of the "correct" way at different schools with no acknowledgement of there being different systems in existence. So I gave it up and printed like all my compatriots but then in French class in highschool the text book had a section on french culture showing "french writing" that they presumably taught there and I liked how it was kind of more complicated and daintier than the versions I'd learned so I tried to imitate those stylistic differences for fun and out of boredom in class. I now voluntarily write cursive for the hell of it because it's more interesting and fun to do. I do this in my own bastardised hand learned in multiple different schools with multiple half remembered "standard" systems plus a few elements of the French system that I cherry picked from that text book all those years ago and a couple of things I looked up online because I wondered if some things might look better from other systems. Don't know why, just kinda like it.