Cursive & Math -- So Yesterday

So let's amble down memory lane for a sec, if that's alright with you.  Think back to your early school days. Try to skip over the images of the towering nuns wielding rulers or the many hours post 3PM that you were punished for some academic misdemeanor.

Instead think about your penmanship class.  Our nuns swore by the Palmer Method complete with all the swirls and flourishes on the upper case letters, ascenders going just so high, descenders just so low.  Personally I had a difficult time with penmanship due to what was then thought to be a minor handicap -- I'm left-handed.  The nuns insisted I use my right hand to no avail.  Well, then at least hold the paper properly as though you were right-handed.  Also to no avail.  Thus I am one of those lefties who writes upside-down, curling my wrist above the emerging text.  (Watch President Obama next time he signs something. You'll get the picture.)

Penmanship was thought so important we had a line for it on our report cards.

Now, however, a growing number of school districts plan to eliminate cursive instruction while opting for keyboarding classes.  I'm all for progress and being a whiz on the keyboard is a needed skill but not in lieu of actually being able to physically write a sentence OR read one.

Memorizing multiplication tables is also on the chopping block.  The thinking is that since kids have access to electronic calculators why teach them their numbers.  Why?!  Why?!

What if you accidentally hit the wrong button on that handy dandy calculator and suddenly 7x7 comes out to be 46 or 51?   Without having the multiplication tables drilled into your brain how will you know you made a mistake. 

Technology can get a tad testy at times.  It likes to crash or freeze or forget that its user-friendly personality.  Then what?   All writing and calculating comes to a grinding halt?

Let me think for a sec -- 1x3=3.  Okay. Got it.  Three cheers for the abolition of cursive and basic math.