Few people learn cursive these days with any skill or speed. It’s a shame. This is a form of traditional art and communication. Handwriting is a slower way of writing, that leads to a different type of letter or essay. The sentences are, typically longer, and the words more expressive because the experience of writing and reading cursive is more expressive than with text. The emotional state and energy of the writer comes through the cursive writing, because the writing itself is a form of creative art, adding to the words.

Send a letter or a post card, and you’ve sent a work of art. You’ve communicated words, or course, but far more than with a text or email. First off, there is the picture on the card. You bought that card, or took the picture. Then there is the art of how many words you use. Each letter is directed to only one person, not to 100 as with a text. As a result, people will keep your letter or card far more than they will not keep a text an email. It is more from you, and more to them. You are likely to put more (or different) things in: experiences and feelings that don’t go into an email or text-letter. The size of your writing communicates and even your cross-outs are part of a cursive communication. With email or text, there are no natural cross outs, and you can send the same letter to 100 people, so you write more blandly, with an eye for eventual reuse for someone else. A cursive note is intended for only one person, the one recipient, and this affects both the words, and the form of the words.

Cursive also lends itself to adding a small sketch or doodle. This becomes part of a personal part of the art in a way that does not fit with normal text. It’s calligraphy and conceptional art, an important part of education, and a continuation of western culture. In normal texts, some people have come to add emojis or GIFs, but these are nowhere near as personal or expressive. The cursive letter or note is personal and spicy. It’s an important art form, at least a valid an art form as any that could be taught in school, and it should be.

Robert E. Buxbaum, Sept 1, 2024. I’m running for school board, and like the idea of teaching basic knowledge as a foundation of creativity. One of these basics, I think, is cursive writing.