In Praise of Circles and Swirls

Do you remember the hours you spent in grade school drawing circles on lined paper? Actually, I don’t think you would really call them circles, but it was an exercise we all did in preparation of learning cursive writing. I think that we can all recall the cursive writing charts, which were usually located above the black board behind the teacher’s desk.

I have noticed that persons that went to the same country school often had very similar handwriting. I can’t come up with any idea of why that might be, but maybe each teacher had a distinctive style when it came to the instructions on how to make those circles and swirls.

I have been away from school for too many years. Is cursive writing still taught in Montana schools? I do know that some schools have opted not to teach this skill anymore. If my great-grandchild gets a handwritten letter from me, will they be able to read it? What about all of our great historical documents? I have terrible handwriting and I will choose a typewriter/computer every chance I get, but I can’t imagine printing or marking an “x” on my legal papers or personal check, so I am a supporter of good old handwriting.