Handwriting and education

I came across this article which discusses the teaching of handwriting (cursive/script) and makes a couple of good points. Primarily, she speaks of changing technology and the eventual obsolescence (though not in those words) of handwriting as an art form by way of the evolution of technology, from the days of the monks in the scriptorium, to the printing press, and to more modern technology like voice recognition software.

She misses one point, though. Handwriting shouldn't be taught not because it is a dead art, but rather because the entire handwriting concept has failed as a whole. Poor handwriting kills 7,000 people annually. The effort to decipher someone's illegible scrawl is a common enough problem. Sure, there is some mystique about the written word, but overall what is the gain? I have never seen anyone's handwriting that is easy to read at a glance, especially compared to the typed word.

Personally, the only thing I write in script is my signature; I haven't used cursive script for anything hand-written since 4th grade. My cursive script is barely readable, to the point where I do not see why I should subject others or myself to having to decipher it; and my scripts is considerably better than some other's.

Instead, I use block printing exclusively for anything handwritten - easy to read at a glance, hard to mistake, and simple. Not elegant, of course, but at least my handwriting won't kill anyone.

The purpose of writing is to communicate - so that which provides the clearest, simplest, and easiest to understand mode of communication should triumph. Ergo, death to script.