On Penmanship

This Article in the Washington Post talks about the demise of penmanship, or more particularly of cursive.

The reason this hit home with me is that two of my girls have gone through Montessori and were taught or are being taught cursive. My oldest is in kindergarten at a public school and is now being taught block printing.

For my money there is a direct link between understanding how to write in cursive and critical thinking.

The less we teach kids about writing the less intelligent our kids will become. Kids who can't write can't express themselves as well as kids who can. Kids who can't express themselves well are going to struggle more than kids who can.

Let the kids get outside playing in some unstructured way and teach them how to write. The kids will figure out among themselves that it's ok to beat up the ones writing in cursive in the dirt.