How do you feel about kids being taught cursive writing? I’m all for it. My thinking about this is mostly along the lines of: If I Had to Suffer, You Should Suffer Too.

I remember those big fat pencils, the lined paper and the agony in my hand as I struggled to make my letters resemble what Sister Mary Holywater had posted on the wall. But mostly I remember the blow to my self esteem. I wasn’t very good at this. I also noticed that the girls were way better at this than the boys. What was going on here? Is this some sinister plot to make us feel bad about our gender?

I sat next to Leo, and we would occasionally look over each other’s work, sigh, bow our heads in defeat, and try, once again, to handle that loop in the capital S, or to write our names. This may be when I switched from Jimmy to Jim. I found it surprisingly difficult to make my m different from my n. Counting humps was not so easy, so eliminating the m and the y was helpful. At least I had the benefit of a short name. I had kids in my class named Mary Beth Sapienza and Mary Margaret Wojiechowski. Good luck with that!

SBEC has upgraded the curriculum standards for cursive. As of next school year, students will begin working on this task in 2nd grade with the goal of writing legibly by 5th. I will take a keen interest in how my granddaughter does. She will be one of the guinea pigs, entering 2nd grade next year. I suspect she will be a whiz at cursive. She’s already gifted artistically (among many other ways) and has advanced fine motor skills (did I mention she is my granddaughter?). So she will probably do fine and enjoy it.

My sympathy with the boys in her class. My word to them is “Don’t get down on yourselves, fellas! It’s not that important! You will be done with this after 5th grade! Hang in there!”

DAWG BONE: ACTUALLY, IF YOU ARE A SMARTY PANTS 2ND GRADER A BIT OF A BLOW TO THE SELF ESTEEM IS PROBABLY A GOOD THING.

See you next week, readers, and don’t forget to hug Mom on Sunday!!