Waste of time

Regarding your Feb. 27 editorial on the teaching of cursive handwriting: I am appalled to think that when our children need to learn so much to get by in such a competitive world that any time (and it does take a good deal of time) would be wasted teaching something as useless as cursive handwriting.

I endured many tedious hours of penmanship in grade school – and for what? Except to sign my name (which I would be happy to print), I haven’t used cursive handwriting since high school (more than 30 years). It is an obsolete skill, useless in a world where most of our communication is electronic.

And please don’t use arguments like its usefulness in teaching motor skills or reading the Declaration of Independence. There are better ways to learn motor control, and the Declaration is quite available (and easier to read) in printed form.

This is pure nostalgia. Don’t waste valuable teaching time on this.

Bruce Luber, Ph.D., Associate professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, Durham