Cursive Handwriting and Penmanship

       The new "Common Core" curriculum doesn't require the teaching of cursive writing and penmanship.  The Core emphasizes critical and computer-based skills.

       Miss Evans came to our classroom once a week to teach us the Palmer method of penmanship.  We would marvel at her flowingly eloquent Spenserian handwriting as it swirled words across the blackboard.  My mouth would drop open as I compared my pinched, barely legible hand to hers.

       The ballpoint pen came in during those years; I fancied that Miss Evans would never use or approve of ballpoint with its intermittencies and fainter ink compared to inkwell and fountain pens.

       Ballpoints didn't put cursive handwriting and penmanship out of business, and I doubt that laptop and tablet keyboards are going to manage to do it either.