The article below from The Guardian reinforces my fear - we pen lovers are fighting a losing battle - and for reference my 16 year old grandson NEVER had a single class hour spent on penmanship, much less any time cursive.
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The article below from The Guardian reinforces my fear - we pen lovers are fighting a losing battle - and for reference my 16 year old grandson NEVER had a single class hour spent on penmanship, much less any time cursive.
8 solid years of Palmer method indoctrination in an iron fisted catholic immigrant school (Italians tought by angry Irish nuns) I am a native cursive handwriter. Even still, I did my note taking in law school ('85-'88) on a Tandy 102. I found it far superior to handwriting.
I'm a fast typist and I found that I could look at the professors while taking down most of what they were saying. I would prefer to take notes that way today but the keyboard is intrusive in smaller settings so I fall back on my cursive skills on paper or my fold 6.
I tend not to use cursive when annotating or hand-editing (mostly on the ProX due to the screen size) documents as my staff reads my printing easier. I guess I don't lament the loss of cursive by my kids. They cobble together a printing form of handwriting that seems to work fine for them.
The thing is, there are articles which note that taking notes via handwriting reinforces learning --- and its one human activity which builds dexterity, which is needed for activities such as knot-tying by surgeons.
Doing what I can --- I've given pretty much every kid I've had occasion to buy books for of a copy of Marc Drogin's Yours Truly King Arthur
(also available as: Calligraphy of the Middle Ages and How to Do It)
and a matching set of pens/markers.
hmm, lettering is quite at vogue with some young people. but you're probably right, that it will be restrained to the artist niche.
for the rest of us, let's hope that the pen input panel and affordable consumer devices will stay around for a while.