Contrary to many of her peers, junior Nancy Giesel said she sees a need for cursive writing, even in today’s technology-based world.

She said, “I write in cursive for almost every assignment. It’s faster. It looks better. Computers are important, but (cursive is) just a necessary skill that everyone should have.”

Like all other current high school students in their elementary school years, Giesel learned cursive writing. But this year, many elementary students nationwide will not learn how to write in cursive.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, the Common Core State Standards no longer require cursive and instead focus more on keyboarding skills, as of this school year. Amy Dudley, assistant superintendent of curriculum in the Carmel Clay Schools district, said via email that Carmel schools have decided to still teach cursive although it is not as much of a priority as it has been in the past.

Giesel said she agrees with this decision to keep cursive but thinks schools should teach cursive writing lessons with as much importance as they did when she learned. She said the reason she uses cursive so much now is because her teachers told her every year that she’d have to use it the next year. According to Giesel, her elementary school teachers said middle school teachers would only accept assignments written in cursive, and although this was not the case, they scared her into writing with it all the time.

According to English teacher Tony Willis, however, Giesel is a rare case. He said that of his 63 English literature and composition students, maybe ten will write in cursive on a timed essay.

Willis said, “I don’t think there’s a need to learn how to write in cursive. Hardly any of the kids who learned it use it, and many of the kids who learned don’t remember how anymore.”

In its memo from April 25, 2011, the Indiana Department of Education mentioned a possibility of online Common Course assessments. Although students would not need to know cursive or any type of writing for these state tests, there is still a cursive statement on the SAT that requires students to copy a statement in cursive.

As a frequent supervisor of the SAT, Willis said many of the students struggle the most not with the actual tests but with the cursive-written statement between two of the sections. He said although students have to copy only a few sentences in cursive, many need more than 15 minutes to write, and some do not even know where to start.

Although many students never use cursive except for the SAT, some school administrators, such as those in Carmel, feel the need to teach it.

According to the Indiana Department of Education, “Schools may decide to continue to teach cursive as a local standard, or they may decide to stop teaching cursive next year to focus the curriculum on more important areas.”

According to Dudley, the teachers in the district spend less time this year than previous years on cursive lessons, but they see an importance in being able to read cursive despite the lack of state requirements. She said if students learn to write it, they will also be able to read it.

Willis said he thinks learning how to read cursive would be beneficial, but learning how to use computers and technology would be more beneficial.

He said, “In journalism, we used to have to count the characters. If you wanted headlines to be centered or spaced properly, you had to know that an ‘m’ was two characters, and an ‘i’ was half a character and so on. But now all you have to do is type it on the screen, and it does it for you. That process is outdated, and cursive is too. Students should learn how to read it to be able to read primary documents, but they don’t need to know how to write it.”

Sophomore Christopher Toth said he agrees that cursive is unnecessary. He said that if on the rare occasion he does have to write in cursive, he has to make up most of the capital letters because he doesn’t remember them.

Toth said, “Every year (the teachers) told you, ‘You have to write in cursive next year,’ but then I got to middle school and never used it. I guess there was a time for it at some point, but not anymore. Most of my assignments are typed anyway.”

According to Giesel, although many of her assignments are typed as well, she is glad she was able to learn cursive unlike many students of the next generation or those learning it just to be able to read it.

“It’s not like (cursive is) hieroglyphics or something. If any of those kids want to be historians, all I can say is good luck. If you learn to write cursive, then it’s easier to read other’s writing, no matter how old it is,” Giesel said. “I can type, write in print and write in cursive. The kids who are still learning it are lucky, but it’s too bad for those who aren’t.”