“When I Was in School…”

Schools should continue to teach skills that can be easily carried out by technology (e.g., cursive writing, multiplication tables, spelling)

Pre-Vote: agree

This debate was one I was excited about! Kudos to my classmates who took this topic on, because Idon’t know how I would have crafted a strong argument in either direction.

I actually want to start this overview with my experience as a classroom teacher. I’ve been asked about teaching cursive before, and my response is always that it depends on the students. Many students at my previous school were still struggling with stamina and penmanship when it came to printing by hand (even in grade 6 and 7). We focused on building that skill along with touch-typing skills. If I had a student with neat printing that wanted to learn how to write in cursive, I would provide them with practice books and take time when I could to help them work through it.

In my last school, I had a very different group and more parents questioning why I wasn’t teaching cursive. What I chose to do then was to start writing in cursive on the board at all times to get my students used to reading it. I also set aside some time teach week to rotate between touch-typing and printing as well as cursive. Again, students who needed to work on writing legibly wouldn’t start cursive writing until they were ready (which they were happy with!) My students who had neat printing and good stamina who wanted to learn cursive would practice this at the same time, with myself leading short lessons. 

All that is to say, my thought process going in is that as a teacher, it’s our professional responsibility to gague where the students are at and continue to push them to show them what they are capable of. Not everyone starts in the same place, especially when we are teaching kids who missed those formative years in writing and reading due to the COVID pandemic.

Cursive: irrelevant, or valuable life skill?

I still remember learning cursive writing in the 3rd grade, and my teacher erasing MY ENTIRE PAGE if I did not do a neat enough job (NOT COOL). After that, all students were expecting to write in only cursive for the rest of our time in elementary school. I remember being absolutely thrilled getting to high school and being able to print to my heart’s desire! I can’t say I ever used cursive again, until I became a teacher myself.

The Great Cursive Writing Debate points out that “… many studies have shown that learning cursive not only improves retention and comprehension, it engages the brain on a deep level as students learn to join letters in a continuous flow. It also enhances fine motor dexterity and gives children a better idea of how words work in combination.” (Long, 2022) I have heard this argument before, but felt the need to go a little deeper to better understand it. This article from the NCBI states that not only is letter perception facilitated by the handwriting experience, but there is “greater activation in several regions during letter perception than during shape perception following printing and drawing of letters and shapes” (James KH & Engelhardt L, 2012) We can’t deny that physically putting pen (or pencil) to paper is beneficial for our brains, and cursive can be used to engage our brains on a deeper level. 

On the flipside, The Pros and Cons of Cursive Writing tells us that “cursive writing has been rendered obsolete by technology.” (Connie, 2019) It goes on to say that teaching cursive writing is extremely time-consuming and can take away valuable teaching time from more applicable subjects and skills like keyboarding and computer skills.

Spelling Bees vs. Spelling Proofreaders

Vanessa and Jenna’s opening statement immediately confirmed my belief that these skills should still be taught. They shared that even if students are using spellcheck, they still need to be somewhat close for any errors to be caught and effectively corrected. *which took me back to a past student I watched type “80hd” into their chromebook after learning from the doctor that they had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder* They shared an article aptly titled Spellcheck Won’t Cut It, which stresses the need to move away from rote memorization, describing former practices of giving students lists of “sight words” to memorize. (Heubeck, 2025) I agree that we still need to stress the importance of spelling, as it goes hand-in-hand with our reading instruction. 

Personally, I would still recommend my students turn off spell-check programs when they are first typing up documents on the computer to hand in. I then ask them to print a copy for themselves before then running their work through an AI proofreader tool, marking their corrections on the hard copy. In the past when I have done this, I have found that students pay more attention to common errors rather than relying on tech to correct everything as they go along. 

You don’t have a calculator in your pocket at all times…

In your face, arithmetic teachers, we do! That being said, it isn’t efficient to be reaching for one’s phone every time there is a simple problem to be solved. As a math coach, I was also relieved to hear both Vanessa & Jenna and Rose & Brianne stress that rote memorization is not the answer. St. Peter’s Preparatory School explains to parents here that “Maths, in most circumstances, is a manipulation of numbers in many different forms. However simple or complex, these tasks requires a strong ‘number sense.” (2022) Memorizing multiplication facts may prove helpful in the classroom, but what is even more effective is understanding the relationships between numbers, and being able to decompose and manipulate them in a way that makes sense for the learner.

Define Valuable Life Skills

At the end of the day, we can all agree that the point of going to school is to learn valuable life skills that we can take with us into the real world to make it a better place. Should those skills include memorization of timestables, spelling words, and perfecting the art of cursive writing?

What about everything else? John Merrow shares his opinion that “…the earlier ‘back to basics’ movements failed because schools obsessed about The Three R’s to the exclusion of creativity, fun, art, music and physical education.” (2017) He also says something that resonates a lot with me as someone who majored in Health Education… “To me, health and nutrition are basic components of a balanced education.” Erica Swallow takes this a step further when describing important life skills in reference to Tony Wagner’s book “The Global Achievement Gap:”

• Critical thinking and problem solving (the ability to ask the right questions)
• Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
• Agility and adaptability
• Initiative and entrepreneurialism
• Accessing and analyzing information
• Effective written and oral communication
• Curiosity and imagination

Bringing it All Back

At the end of this debate, I feel that everyone agreed that we need to change the way we teach things, and perhaps how much emphasis we place on different skills. Is it important to understand numeracy? Yes. Is it important to spend hours and hours memorizing facts? No. Is it important to learn how to form letters and engage the brain? Yes. Is it important to drill-and-practice until every single thing is perfect? No.

Should skills that can be carried out by technology still be taught in school? Yes, but we need to think more about WHY and HOW we are going to change the way we teach.