As a father of a two-year-old, I find myself speaking with a lot of other parents. A recent conversation I had shocked me. “My daughter the other day couldn’t read my handwriting because it’s in script.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t your daughter like 12 or something?”
“Yes, they don’t teach script in school anymore, you didn’t know that?”
I had to let the information process in my head. I had flashbacks of me learning how to write my name in script and practicing endless hours on a super cool signature in script so that when I became a famous baseball player and needed to sign autographs, my signature was going to look awesome.
“No I didn’t know that, excuse me.”
And then I walked out of the room and it was like the whole world had turned upside down on me. Is this my first old man moment? Am I now the old man who thinks the world has gone bananas? HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU NOT TEACH CHILDREN HOW TO READ SCRIPT?????
How are they supposed to read the original Bill of Rights? Is that all just jibberish to an entire nation now? How are they supposed to sign a birthday card? THIS IS INSANITY!!!!
Oh but David, you don’t need script, computers don’t write in script.
OH REALLY??? You don’t need clocks either, should we not teach them about that anymore? We don’t NEED to read anymore, computers can read for you, let’s shut that down, too. And how about math, I mean honestly what’s the point? You have a calculator don’t you?
It’s not about if you need it or not. Lots of things you learn in school are actually NEEDED. It’s about learning how to do things. It’s about learning discipline. It’s about learning how to learn, it’s about expanding your horizons….IT’S ABOUT!!!! JUST TEACH THE DARN KID HOW TO WRITE IN SCRIPT, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST FIND OUT???!!!
I walked back into the conversation. “Sorry, I just needed a moment to process. So they don’t teach script anymore, huh? That’s a shame,” I took a swig of my seltzer.
“They don’t teach spelling anymore either.”
“Excuse me for a moment please.”
