NJ Just Passed A Law Requiring Students To Learn This Old-Fashioned Skill
wavebreakmedia | Shutterstock Who needs a pencil and paper when we can just type or generate whatever text we need to? Actually, New Jersey students will, as they'll now be required to learn how to write in cursive by hand.
This old-fashioned skill disappeared from schools along with chalkboards and card catalogs, but it's resurfacing in the modern day in order to help kids be better students.
New Jersey lawmakers have decided to reintroduce teaching cursive in schools.
A brand new bill signed by now-former New Jersey Governor Philip D. Murphy will require cursive to be included in the third, fourth, and fifth-grade curriculum once again.
Cursive was removed from Common Core K-12 education standards in 2010, and kids were no longer mandated to learn how to write in longhand script at school.
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New Jersey isn't the only state bringing back this old practice, as roughly 24 other states have also instituted cursive requirements in recent years, according to EducationWeek. The bill is effective immediately, but won't be implemented until the next full school year, so students still have plenty of time to prepare.
Studies have found that learning how to write in cursive has been linked to better learning and memory retention, especially in educational contexts. Handwriting activates more regions of the brain than typing, including those responsible for motor, sensory, and cognitive functions.
Using cursive allows for a fluid, uninterrupted writing process, so students can focus more on the content of their writing rather than the mechanics of forming individual letters.
Supporters of the bill believe it will have positive impacts on students in the long run.
"Ensuring that all students learn cursive handwriting reinforces not just a traditional skill, but developmental foundations that support fine motor development, literacy skills, and student confidence," says Kevin Dehmer, the state’s education commissioner.
Governor Murphy explained in a statement that learning cursive will help students perform important life skills, like writing a check and reading important historical documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.
Bill supporter and state Assemblywoman Shanique Speight recalled her own days in school, saying, "For those of us who grew up handwriting our school papers, it’s hard to imagine that some children can no longer read or write using cursive. Requiring that cursive be taught in our public schools will benefit our students and prepare them for the future, so I am pleased to see this bill signed into law."
However, not everyone is entirely on board with the bill. Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, stated, "It is a very strange phenomenon, but the fact that you have states left, right, and center adopting mandates that children learn cursive is not something I could have predicted. Who handwrites hardly anything?"
Learning to write in cursive has incredible benefits for the brain.
While this isn't a new topic of research, scientists have recently been delving deeper into the effects of learning cursive on young children. One study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, used high-density EEG monitoring to analyze the differences in brain activity when participants wrote by hand in cursive, typed on a keyboard, and drew visually presented words.
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The results revealed that cursive handwriting synchronized brain waves within a range primed for learning. Additionally, it stimulated more electrical activity in the parietal lobe and central regions of the brain, which are associated with memory and encoding of new information.
Audrey van der Meer, a neuropsychology professor at NTNU and one of the study's co-authors, shared in a news release, "The use of pen and paper gives the brain more 'hooks' to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write, and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sense experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning."
Kayla Asbach is a writer currently working on her bachelor's degree at the University of Central Florida. She covers relationships, psychology, self-help, pop culture, and human interest topics.
