I could remember that I was starving. Five minutes earlier I had purchased a crave-worthy seven-layer burrito from the Taco Bell near campus. My mouth had been watering for a taste of that creamy sour cream and spicy guacamole. Just five more miles to my tiny apartment, and I could wolf down this culinary masterpiece!
As I headed east out of Morehead on route sixty, I had figured that I had just enough time to devour my tasty lunch before it was time for my shift to start at work. Balancing my part time job and two summer classes had been tough, but summer classes only lasted the month of June. A month wasn’t that long. I could handle a busy schedule for just four short weeks. Well, my lunch, class load, and work schedule would soon be become irrelevant. It is funny how fast plans can be spun around when outside forces take over. The thoughts of my quick lunch break were put on hold forever when I noticed that a black sedan had cruised into my driving lane. I wondered when it was going to correct its path. Then, CRASH! A stream of questions ran through my head, “Did I just black out? Where am I? Why won’t my door open? What just happened?” As I shook my door handle, I glanced around the outside of my car. All that I could see was doublewide trailers. They were everywhere. “Why are there trailers on the road?” I wondered to myself. “Aww! Help me! Please help me?” I heard an unseen woman scream. I wasn’t sure who she was, but I wanted to check on her. I just needed to get this door open. “Why won’t this door budge?” I asked. “Hang on there!” urged as young state trooper as he clasped my hand on the windowsill. I desperately asked him, “Can you help me? My door is stuck. I just need to get out of my car. I can hear someone screaming. What’s going on?” “Hold tight there,” he stated as he adjusted his hat. “You’ve been in an accident. The other driver’s car is behind you, and someone is checking on her now.” “The other driver?” I wondered to myself. The black sedan! I started to remember how a black sedan had slowly cruised into my lane as I drove down route sixty. I remember that she was looking down at her radio. I remember that I was waiting for her to look up and to go back into her lane. I remember… “Miss? Are you still with me?” the state trooper urgently inquired. As I glanced up at him, I began to realize that she didn’t correct herself. Though I couldn’t exactly recall what had happened, I now realized that our cars must have collided. Just outside the passenger side window, I could see the road. Several cars were lined up in both directions. There was sparkly glass shimmering in the midday sun. Someone was trying to stop the cars from traversing the sea of glass. “Miss?” a bodiless voice inquired urgently. “Yes? Oh, I’m okay. I seem to be stuck,” I stated as I tugged at my door. Suddenly, I felt a stinging sensation on my chin. As I touched the tender skin on my neck, I noticed a burning smell. I coughed, and then asked, “Can you help me? My door seems to be stuck.” “Hang on a minute. I can hear the ambulance now,” responded the trooper who was now standing at my window. As my surroundings started to sink in, a shattered windshield, a deflating airbag, and more screaming from the other car, I quickly stated, “I don’t need an ambulance. I just need to get this door open!” “Just a couple more minutes,” he urged. He was right. I could hear the screeching sirens as they came closer and closer. A moment later a second man appeared. “How is everything here?” he asked. “She seems to be stuck,” informed the trooper. “We’re just waiting for the ambulance.” Both men chatted so softly that I couldn’t hear them. As I started to daydream about getting out of my car and getting to work, I heard three more voices join the conversation. I couldn’t see their faces because they were standing behind my car, and I couldn’t manage to turn around. All that I could do was wait. After what seemed like several minutes, the state trooper came back to my window. “The ambulance is here, but you were right. Your door is stuck. We’re going to have to cut your door from your car.” “What?” I asked in a shocked tone. This couldn’t be happening. “It’s okay. I will be here the whole time,” he comforted. I could feel my heart starting to race and breath coming in quick, short gasps. I heard a CLANG! Then, everything became a blur. My door seemed to be ripped from my green dodge neon by Zeus himself! A blur of people hustled around my car and started to gently adjust my arms and shoulders. I could hear someone screaming, and a gaggle of people speaking in hushed tones as two people prepared to lift me from my driver’s seat. “Okay, my name is Steve, and I am a paramedic here in Morehead. We are going to move you onto a stretcher so that we can get you to the hospital. It may hurt a little when we move you, but I promise you are in good hands,” calmly informed a middle-aged man. “On the count of three. One, two, three…” “Stop! Aweee! Stop!” I screamed as they tugged my broken body from my smashed, tin can of a car. That was the last thing that I remember. I must have blacked out. As I opened my eyes, all that I could see was Steve, the paramedic. “Hey, you’re back. We are on our way to the hospital. I believe that your hip joint is dislocated and both of your feet are injured. We will know more when we get to the hospital. We are going to hit a bump in a moment. Brace yourself,” Steve warned. I did. The jarring of my body was excruciating, but I didn’t loose consciousness. All that I could say was, “Okay.” When we arrived at the hospital, Steve and his partner quickly removed my stretcher from their rig and rushed me through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room. An army of people surrounded my stretcher as they transferred my injured form to another surface. “We will need to give you something to knock you out so that we can fix your hip. Before we do, do you want to call someone to tell them where you are?” asked a kind-faced doctor. That seemed like an odd question at the time, but I knew that I didn’t want to be alone for what was to come. With shaky fingers, I quickly dialed my grandmother’s phone number. “Grandma?” I asked when I heard someone answer the phone. “It’s me. I’ve been in an accident.” As I started to cry, the nurse took the phone, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up from a foggy sleep. There, by my side, were the state trooper and the two paramedics. “Hey, sunshine! You are never going to believe what the doctor just did to you!” grinned Steve. His kind face, in a sea of strangers, made everything seem okay for a minute. “You’re family is on their way. Brad is here,” informed the kind state trooper. I glanced to behind my three angels to see the worried face of my best friend. “Brad,” I smiled as I reached for his strong hand. At the time I didn’t know how much I would need him and my family during the next few months. My injuries were pretty severe, and my recovery would take time and perseverance. While lying in my hospital bed, all that I could think about was how happy I was that he was there with me.
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"Can you believe that my kid's school is not teaching cursive?" asked a concerned parent. Another parents quickly replied, "I know! How are these kids supposed to sign a check when they grow up?" These redundant questions first came to my attention in a social media post. At first, I brushed the comments off as no big deal, but as time passed, I became keenly aware that these questions were being repeated by parents, grandparents, and many others educational stakeholders. This transformed my curiosity to concern, but the culminating event that launched me into action was a conversation between myself and a couple of my fellow educators. One afternoon I was eager to share my excitement about a lesson that I had just completed in class. Part of this lesson involved cursive writing instruction. As I shared my excitement, I was interupted by a colleague who asked, "You're teaching cursive? We were told that we weren't allowed." At first I thought that she was pulling my leg, but I quickly realized that she was serious as I glanced around at three shocked faces. This led me to anxiety wondering when someone was going to question me about how I'm spending my time in class. Was I, the type A rule follower, going to be reprimanded to teaching cursive handwriting. Like I mentioned earlier, this conversation led me to write this post and to research the bigger discussion of whether school's should continue to teach cursive handwriting. Support for Cursive in the Classroom During conversations with parents and fellow educators, two main reasons why cursive should be taught can often be overheard. First, students need to be able to sign their names. I agree that this is important as they need to be able to sign checks and legal documents as adults, but more importantly, kids need to be able to read cursive. For generations children have been taught cursive handwriting. These children have grown into the adults who fill our board rooms, teach in our classrooms, and run our country. When their bosses, parents, or other individuals write notes or cards in cursive, will the kids today be able to read them? Without cursive writing instruction, the answer is no. In addition, will today's students need to make embarrassing requests for their bosses print the notes on their dry erase boards that are used for brainstorming or sharing notes in meetings? Will they need to seek help to translate handwritten written notes that still exist even in our digital world? If things do not change in our classrooms, it's possible that they will. Aside from writing their signature and the ability to read cursive, there are even deeper benefits for students to this skill. According to Virginia Berniger, a professor of psychology from the University of Washington, children need cursive instruction even though there is a movement taking place that cursive instruction be replaced by more modernized keyboarding instruction. Berniger has conducted several studies that support cursive instruction as it has several benefits to the educational development of children. Berniger's studies conclude that print, cursive, and typing all result in different brain functions. Berniger stated, "...brain imaging indicates that when older children are asked to come up with ideas for a composition, better handwriting correlates with greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory." She also pointed out, "What we found is that children wrote more words, they wrote them faster and expressed more ideas with paper and pen than with the keyboard." Likewise, she pointed out that even though we have word processing tools with spellcheck, cursive handwriting can aid students with their spelling skills as it allows their brains to store words that are linked and connected with the linking strokes used in cursive handwriting. Another benefit is it can also benefit ESL students who are trying to master English as a second language (Berniger). These benefits to our students cannot be overlooked or brushed off as unimportant or insubstantial. As mentioned above, cursive handwriting instruction can help students with learning disabilities to combat the challenges that plague them each day. Diane Montgomery from Middlesex University in London, found that cursive has numerous benefits. Below is a list from Montgomery's "The Contribution of Handwriting and Spelling Remediation to Overcoming Dyslexia" which was included in Dyslexia- A Comprehensive and Intermational Approach. -aids left to right movement through words across the page -stops reversals and inversions of letters -induces greater fluency in writing so enables greater speed without loss of legibility -more can be written in the time -speed and fluency can make a difference of a grade at GCSE, A level or in degree programmes -the motor programmes for spelling words, their bases and affixes are stored together -space between letters and between words is orderly and automatic -a more efficient fluent and personal style can be developed -pupils with handwriting coordination difficulties experience less pain and difficulty -legibility of writing is improved -reinforces multisensory learning linking spelling, writing and speaking. (Montgomery). Mandates for Cursive Handwriting Many states have, are trying, or have tried to pass laws that mandate cursive instruction. This may be the result of the absence of cursive instruction standards in the Common Core (Svendsen). Even manuscript handwriting standards are minimal in this collection of standards. Students in kindergarten and first grade are expected to be given instruction that results in legible handwriting, but as students move on to higher grades, the standards shift to emphasizing keyboarding instruction rather than cursive handwriting instruction that you would have found in the classroom ten or twenty years ago (Meyers). Several states like Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee have been successful in passing laws that mandate cursive instruction in schools while other states like Kentucky and Indiana have failed to pass bills that would have mandated cursive instruction (Sittler; Boucher; Bryan). Similar bills are currently being consider across the country. My Conclusions As I come to a close, I think that Berniger said it best when she stated, "It's just that we've left handwriting behind without carefully looking at not only research, but kids' learning." The accuracy of this statement resonates with me. I hope that the importance of cursive handwriting instruction continues to be discussed and that more individuals, schools, and states continue to ask if it is needed as they consider the research that either supports or opposes its inclusion in the curriculum. Cursive instruction should not be brushed off because it is old fashioned or irrelevant. It shouldn't be put on the shelf because it's easier to type and instructional time could be better spent on keyboarding skills. It shouldn't continue because that's how our parents and grandparents learned to write. Educators, school districts, and other stakeholders need to become informed decision makers before putting the topic of cursive in the classroom to sleep. *Sources used for this blog post can be found below.
Berniger, Virginia (2013). Educating Students in a Computer Age to be Multilingual by Hand. Commentaries: A Continuing Dialogue on Critical Education Policy Issues. https://www.zaner-bloser.com/sites/default/files/public/Commentary_Multilingual_by_Hand.pdf Boucher, Dave (2014). State Approves New Writing Standards. The Tennessean. http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2014/11/05/new-tennessee-cursive-writing-standards/18541319/ Bryan, LaMar (2012). Bill Mandates Cursive Writing Instruction. The Messenger. http://www.kentuckynewera.com/web/news/article_ba62715e-643f-11e1-ade1-001871e3ce6c.html Myers, Scott Lee (2014). Rearch Highlights the Benefits of Cursive Handwriting. Wisconsin Public Radio. http://www.wpr.org/research-highlights-benefits-teaching-cursive-handwriting. Montgomery, Diana (2012). The Contribution of Handwriting and Spelling Remediation to Overcoming Dyslexia, Dyslexia - A Comprehensive and International Approach, Prof. Taeko Wydell (Ed.), InTech, DOI: 10.5772/30994. Available from: http://www.intechopen.com/books/dyslexia-a-comprehensive-and-international-approach/the-contribution-of-handwriting-and-spelling-remediation-to-overcoming-dyslexia Steinmetz, Katy (2014). Five Reasons Kids Should Still Learn Cursive Writing. Time Magazine. http://time.com/2820780/five-reasons-kids-should-still-learn-cursive-writing/ Truberk, Ann (2016) Handwriting Just Doesn't Matter. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/opinion/handwriting-just-doesnt-matter.html?_r=0 Your journey starts where the black top meets that gravel
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AuthorSheina Kegley is a fifth grade language arts teacher from Kentucky. ArchivesCategories |