DEBATE: Should We Say 'Goodbye' to Cursive Writing?
Thanks to laptops, computers and electronic tablets, Martha MacCallum reported that many schools are saying goodbye to the art of cursive writing ... something that many kids struggled with during their grade school years. Now, the development is sparking quite debate over whether or not kids these days need to learn how to write in cursive at all.
Radio talk show host Michael Graham weighed in, saying, “It’s ridiculous. It’s a learned, bizarre language that no one ever uses again the rest of their life, except for signing checks ... and you want to spend three years wasting kids' time on it?”
“You can’t go through your life without knowing how to take pen to a paper and write a nice letter, write a nice note to someone,” MacCallum fought back. “If kids have absolutely no connection with that art at all, it diminishes us in some way.”
Graham held up his smart phone, saying, “This is a stamp of our human uniqueness. I can talk into it and it sends texts for me without even typing. I can surf the Internet with it with a built-in keyboard.”
MacCallum pointed out that parents these days don’t have to worry about their children not learning how to use a computer because she it’s 'like osmosis.'
“What they could lose is their ability to sit down and write something, language, speaking to each other face-to-face; all of these are the things that we need to encourage in children today, because they will clearly have very small skills in this area."
Graham countered yet again, however, saying: “What’s the point? They’re never going to use it again!”
Watch the debate & tell us what you think below:
