Cursive writing decision continues our tragic descent

Kathleen M. Stone, Pahrump

Thursday, July 21, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Regarding Michael Smerconish’s Saturday column, “Keys can’t replace cursive writing”:

Smerconish reports that the Indiana Education Department has decided to go along with a national movement called the Common Core State Standards Initiative in deleting the teaching of cursive writing because of the technological advances of the computer and keyboard.

I can’t decide whether this is the smartest or dumbest decision by a government agency.

Let’s see what this will do for kids:

If they don’t learn cursive, they won’t be able to read any document written in cursive; they won’t be able to sign their names to any legal documentation, nor witness anyone else doing so. What exactly will people, who only know how to type, do when the electrical grid goes down, taking all of the electronic devices with it? This country will come to a standstill because they weren’t taught how to use the original computer, i.e., their brain.

I could go on, but what’s the point? These students wouldn’t understand anyway, and one day they will be adults who don’t understand. This is just one more example of “dumbing down” the population to the point that they will not understand our government is rapidly taking away all of our freedoms — until it is too late.

The above examples fall under the “dumbest decision” ever made.

The “smartest decision” Indiana ever made in deleting cursive writing from its curriculum could be other states’ solution to their economic crises; because anyone with a brain would be moving themselves, along with their children, out of Indiana to one that still believes in educating children. Budget shortfall solved!