Nearly 40 years later, the admonishments of my second-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary in Anaheim still ring in my ears. “Messy! Messy!” I was a precocious 8-year-old, placed in a ...

When Jack Lew was nominated to be Treasury secretary in 2013, President Barack Obama joked that as a condition of the appointment, Lew would have to learn to sign his name more legibly. The ...

That's what I'm giving the state of Alabama for its new law requiring that cursive writing be taught in public schools. It's not a stellar idea, but it's not the worst thing to happen in our schools, ...

I can still feel the tips of my 10-year-old fingers striking the orange cover on the keyboard. It was in this 5th grade public-school class that – despite my frequent boos and bellyaching – I learned ...

For Americans over a certain age, the idea of not learning cursive in school is close to unimaginable. The experience of mastering the looping letters and rhythmic flow from word to word — while never ...

Before smartphone keyboards, before laptops, PCs and typewriters, before the printing press, there was cursive handwriting. But for many members of generations growing up with electronic devices, ...

Here’s a list of things I never learned between kindergarten and eighth grade: the modern history and geography of any country outside of North America and Europe; a foreign language; anything related ...

Because you are reading this in typeface (or maybe even listening to this in an audio format), cursive probably isn’t even on your radar. Who writes in cursive anymore? Maybe to sign checks or ...

CRITICIZE THE U.S. TARIFFS. MANY OF US CAN’T REMEMBER A TIME WHEN CURSIVE WAS NOT TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS, BUT NOW IT’S ALMOST ANCIENT HISTORY, LEAVING AT LEAST ONE GENERATION TO GEN ZERS TO STRUGGLE WITH ...

Tyara Brooks teaches her fourth-grade students how to write in cursive at Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) “Messy! Messy!” Nearly 40 years later, the ...