It’s not clear why Tom Brindley is insisting that cursive still be taught in public schools. Except it’s not clear why. He quotes Glenn Beck, whom he identifies as a “political commentator” (I suppose more accurate descriptions took up too much space.), that the failure to still teach cursive is part of the enslavement of our children by dumbing them down. (Paraphrasing only slightly.) He quotes Horace Mann on the importance of education, although not necessarily of learning cursive. He quotes someone named Jeff Childers, identified as “attorney, political commentator”:

“So, I look at the parent’s bill of rights — it’s really a good framework, like taking the body of an AK-47 and then we can start mounting new accessories onto it: flashlight, laser pointer, and things like that.”

Curious about his choice of metaphors, I looked up Mr. Childers on the Google. Results were less than clear. He appears to be an IP attorney. We’re known to be deranged.

Returning to Mr. Brindley, he follows his quote from Mr. Childers with a lengthy discussion of how the Revolutionary War would have been different had the Colonials been able to use AK-47s. I don’t think there’s any question about that, but again, I don’t see what it has to do with learning cursive.

The most comprehensible thing Mr. Brindley writes is the obvious: “Cursive handwriting is fading because people have quit using it.” Well, sure. Except, it’s still not clear to me why cursive needs to be taught in schools. Perhaps I should put in a call to Mr. Childers since Mr. Beck likely is unavailable and Mr. Mann is dead.

My thinking is this: block printing is good enough for architecture school and it was good enough for Jean-Michel Basquiat and it is good enough for me.

CLYDE SHUMAN,

Ossineke