Cursive is making a comeback
And next up is pencils
The pendulum is swinging. Analog is back in style, albeit by means of education policy. Thanks to generative-AI tools, like ChatGPT, handwritten assignments may increasingly become the norm in higher education, and K-12 schools are re-incorporating cursive writing into their curriculum.
University professors are spearheading a handwriting revolution by requiring students to write, not type, their assignments, sometimes while they are sitting in class under the watchful eye of the professor. Professors are attempting to curb plagiarism via AI, and students, who have grown up using computers and tablets to complete schoolwork, will no doubt find the transition difficult. Luckily, state education departments, like Georgia’s, have decided to reincorporate cursive handwriting into their education standards for grammar school. By the time these students go on to college, they’ll be more fluent in handwriting.
With all this talk of analog versus digital, and the debate the issue will garner, the merits of handwriting needs to be front and center of the conversation. Just the other day, a pencil company, Blackwing, spelled out the benefits in a recent email to their subscribers on World Productivity Day:
While screens dominate our daily lives, there's a powerful, often overlooked, tool for productivity: a pencil. At Blackwing, we champion the unique connection between hand, mind, and paper as a path to deeper thinking and more impactful work. Here are some insights to consider:
Participants in a study completed note-taking 25% faster when using paper compared to those who used digital tablets or smartphones.
Handwriting activates almost the whole brain vs. typewriting where only small parts of the brain are active, found Audrey van der Meer, a neuropsychology professor at NTNU.
Individuals who wrote their goals by hand were up to 42% more likely to achieve them than those who didn’t, according to Dr. Gail Matthews’ research.
Obviously, Blackwing stands to gain from promoting analog over digital, but I doubt they’re wrong about the benefits of handwriting. I, myself, have experienced the advantages of taking pencil to paper.
When taking notes in graduate schools, I started my first semester with my fancy laptop and newly-downloaded note-taking app, Evernote. By the end of that first semester, I was in my favorite aisle of Target—school supplies—purchasing a five-subject notebook and then headed home to dig out one of my many pencil pouches, stuffing it with my favorite pens and f**king brilliant pencils (which is the actual name of the brand of pencils) that my sister lovingly gifted me.
I’ve noticed that when I take notes by hand, I focus more on the details that matter most to the subject taught and the overarching themes the lecturer is attempting to convey. When I type out my notes, I try to capture every word and thus miss some of the finer points. Not to mention the problem of somehow winding up on the internet, resulting in a total loss of focus on the subject at hand. Additionally, when I hand write notes, as well as items on my to-do list, I am more likely to remember them. It’s as if the act of writing on paper ensures the notes are simultaneously being written on my brain. Often, I end up not even needing the to-do list.
Handwriting also has the side effect of slowing down thinking. More effort is involved in writing by hand, thus, one is more inclined to be thoughtful about what they want to say. Certainly, if someone is proficient in cursive more so than typing, then writing responses to an assignment, for example, may be quicker, but, especially for young people who have become accustomed to using tablets and the like, handwriting usually takes more time than typing. Therefore, with practice, the student will become more intentional about what they want to say when they have to pick up a pencil to say it, especially because erasing a thought takes more time and resources (e.g., erasers) in the analog world. As such, if for no other reason than to save the time and resources, an analog writer becomes more clear and concise. They are able to convey their thoughts without as many words.
This last point could be a drawback rather than an argument for handwritten assignments, depending on the task at hand. I found it refreshing to read some of Thomas Jefferson’s letters because he got to the heart of the matter in less than 1,000 words, but fictional writing, for instance, needs more meat.
Parents and students may think returning to a world where assignments are handwritten, and in cursive at that, is a waste of learning time, in the case of the former, or simply archaic, in the case of the latter, but the upside may present itself quicker than the detractors think. A professor in Canada, for example, noticed immediately after implementing in-class handwritten essays as a form of assessment that her students became more engaged in the content they were learning and more conversational in the classroom. Plus, more young people will now be able to help the National Archive transcribe history, which, if you ask me, is no trivial matter.