When we say Cursive is making a comeback, it honestly should make everyone happy. Why? Just read this blog to find out:
One Gen X woman found that out the hard way, at the doctor’s office, of all places, when a young receptionist handed her paperwork back and said, “I can’t read this.”
No, the writing wasn’t messy. It was cursive.
The woman had filled out her forms in cursive, thinking nothing of it. “My printing is chicken scratch,” she explained in a Reddit post, “but my cursive is good, so that’s mostly what I use.” And after a decade of online forms, writing by hand at all was already a throwback.
But when she handed the clipboard back, the receptionist blinked at it like it was written in another language. “I never learned that kind of English,” she told her, politely but firmly. “You’ll have to redo it.”
That’s when it hit her: this girl had literally never been taught how to read cursive.
The patient declined to redo the paperwork. Thankfully, the doctor, who was older, could read it just fine. Still, the whole thing stuck with her. What used to be standard is now optional. Or in some places, totally gone.
According to The Washington Post, cursive started disappearing from schools after 2010, when Common Core standards quietly dropped it from the curriculum. So, a lot of Gen Z grew up never learning how to write, or even read, cursive at all.
And it’s not just about nice penmanship. Experts say cursive can help with literacy and brain development. Plus, a lot of old documents, letters, and historical archives are written in cursive.
And now a new problem is unlocked, there’s even more gap between the two generations. Luckily cursive is coming back to school curriculums so that the new generation leverage from the same benefits and making this gap just a bit smaller.
Some schools still teach it, but a lot of states are passing law to make it mandatory again. It’s about time that they realize the importance and all the benefits Cursive brings with itself.
Bottom line? Cursive is absolutely not outdated and far from useless. And for anyone born before 1990, it’s kind of wild to think your everyday handwriting might now need a translation.