There is a great debate going around not teaching cursive in schools. Many schools have already shifted from less penmanship to more keyboarding. Supposedly, there is not enough time in the day for all the subjects kids must learn today and handwriting is one of those getting cut.
While keyboarding is ever important in our digital world, what will happen to the lost art of cursive? And if script writing it isn’t taught, will our children know how to read it? Many historical documents are in cursive including The Declaration of Independence. Formal wedding invitations with lots of loops and curls could be a thing of the past. Script fonts could go away entirely. Those fonts designed to look like handwriting will lose their relevancy for sure.
What happens to our personal brands if we no longer have signatures? A signature is a direct link into a person’s identity. The long curves of our capital letters and way we scribble our middle initial is unique. A slanted signature can show that the signer is left or right-handed. Handwriting experts have said that Barack Obama’s signature shows “intelligence, fluidity and fast thinking.”
No one will collect souvenirs with famous people’s autographs anymore without unique signatures. Trying to sell that foul ball you got signed by the baseball star on eBay won’t be worth as much when the name is spelled out in 3rd grade all caps letters. Will there be such a thing as ‘book signings’? I can’t imagine authors sitting at a table printing their names.
When future generations grow up to sign away their life on their student loan forms, they will block print their names. When they write a thank you note it will be in print – WAIT – they will never send a handwritten thank you note. They will type it or just send a text, right? Maybe this is why children don’t need to learn how to write in cursive because everything is being done electronically. Some students can even use computers for standardized tests now.
A signature is something that is supposed to be ‘one of a kind,’ similar to our fingerprints. Used on everything from mortgage papers to driver’s licenses, our signatures are even used by banks it to verify deposits. Forgery would be more common if everyone printed his or her names. In the future, will our signatures become some form of electronic signature using fingerprints or microchips?
