I hear it more and more that young adults, and school-aged children, have handwriting that is not legible. It looks like chicken scratch, the letters are not on the lines, and overall it just looks awful. The children are not to blame though. It is on the ones who create the standards for the school systems. The Common Core standards dropped the requirement of handwriting back in 2010.

This change in the curriculum did not make it for the better. It essentially made the situation worse. First of all, teachers jobs are more complicated now due to the reason that it takes them longer to read students writing since it is sloppy. Struggling to read a student’s writing is not what the focus needs to be. It should be on the content of the writing and what they have to say. Sadly, this is not the case, and teachers have trouble reading the writing, and are not able to focus on the content of the writing.

Someone with the opposing viewpoint might argue that handwriting is not an essential thing that needs to be taught due to the technology of computers. However, handwriting is still used in everyday life no matter what. People have to sign their name on important documents. Such documents include drivers licenses, social security cards, contracts, and purchases with credit cards. Without being able to sign your name, you will not have evidence of proper identification if a signature is just a few scribble marks. After all, handwriting is an important skill and should still be a requirement for schools to teach.