Cursive
While pondering the ugliness of two wars, man’s inhumanity to man, and wondering if there is any peaceful end to this mess, I can’t help but be struck by irony after irony in the land of tech which marches merrily along, oblivious to anything outside itself.
So, how ironic that while we talk of AI, gen AI, and the WSJ does its tech conference in LA this week where we get to listen to Sam Altman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and so many others (any women, anyone!!??) our Cali governor in all his wisdom signs a new law that cursive come back to the teaching curriculum of our grammar schools.
Why did it ever stop? I knew we were in for trouble when “keyboarding” came into vogue and handwriting went out the window. Some of today’s teachers don’t know how to teach it. Many kids who are a product of public education of the last 10–15 years don’t know how to write it or read it.
Appalling. Apparently, they have now figured out that writing in cursive triggers and uses a different part of the brain and it might be bad if the next generation can’t read microfiche and handwritten artifacts in historical archives and, dare we say, be able to translate such material for LLMs. My gosh!
I was reflecting on all this and the continued oxymoron in life between the push me and pull you of technology and the ways it’s forcing us to do things we don’t want to but must. We know customer service has all but moved to the customer to do all the work. I’ve written about systems that can’t keep our data straight and silly tech experiences like trying to buy and cancel a Wall Street Journal subscription.
But a war on cursive for a decade which now with one stroke of a pen (oh, the irony) comes roaring back into our schools when AI is all the rage? I can’t get my head around this. I’m happy it’s back. It should have never gone anywhere. Somehow the 1s and 0s are going to have to coexist with pens and pencils and cursive — ancient artifacts. I wonder if AI is going to teach the teachers who can’t handwrite anymore how to get their mojo back?
I came off my news diet just in time to pick up this late breaking story. What have I been missing I ask myself. Never mind. I figured out a way to get my WSJ sub back for a $1 a week for 52 weeks and I’m happy.