Cursive and Conformity

My viewpoint on public education has shifted to a new level. A short while ago, I was researching if and why cursive handwriting is a vestigial structure of the public school system. Earlier that same day, I had written a timed writing explaining the power of American conformity. Since the dawn of my senior status, I have been increasingly frustrated with public education, so I thought cursive writing would make a great example of current failures in teaching methodology. But suddenly, for a brief moment and without reason, all my anger disappeared and streams of information flowed out of their cerebral reservoirs into my body’s dusty analytical melting pot. In that instant of clear-minded anarchy, cursive and conformity were colliding and fusing, revealing previously unknown-to-me levels of educational organization.

So why do schools still teach cursive handwriting? Students argue that learning cursive is useless to their future. Opposing that thought, teachers tell the students they will need it later in life. But really, my viewpoint has nothing to do, at all, with the actual skill of cursive writing. Rather, learning to write in cursive is important for developing fine motor skills and a fast/legible writing style which can prove useful in taking notes throughout the rest of one’s life. Sure, just knowing cursive isn’t relevant to many lives, but the invisible things one learns with it are invaluable.

These invisible, unnoticed things–that students aren’t aware of–may just be found in everything that every student has ever practiced. While still exploring this idea, I believe the lack of original thought onset by student conformity may be responsible for students' unawareness.

Being a follower has always been what students consider “normal.” Intelligent and thought-provoking students are often underrated and outcast by their classmates, purely because they are “different,” even though they propel humanity forward with fresh perspectives, more-so than their creatively-challenged peers. This means that followers are often blind of deeper motives in human constructions, like teaching a child to write in script.

What is the effect of this on humanity (going to be)? I believe these followers will attribute to the downfall of any chance we (all of humanity) have at building an advanced civilization filled with freedom and independent thought.

For now, though, the cattle shall remain herded.