Will Handwriting Go the Way of The Dodo?

In this age of rapid change, I often ponder which skills and character traits will be most needed for my kids in the future. Some are timeless: honesty, personal responsibility, a sense of humor, math facts, integrity, good manners, empathy, good hygiene and a strong work ethic. 

Some would argue the need for "math facts" in this calculator-in-your-pocket era, but I'm holding out on that one. Being quick with numbers is useful worldwide for use in large negotiations and simple market transactions and that is not going to change. I mean who whips out their phone to calculate tip in a taxi cab or restaurant?

New necessities: a global mindset and experience, patience, flexibility, entrepreneurship, and the ability to think fast and write well.

Skills I'll probably never use again: push-reel lawn mowing, paper map navigation, winding up a car window, and perusing the Encyclopedia Britannica which - by the way - announced in March it will cease printing after 244 years!

One life skill I've never questioned, is handwriting. Yet, my son's third grade teacher doesn't think kids will use handwriting in "about ten years". Not just cursive, which has its own debate, but good old fashioned pen and paper, love letter, Declaration of Independence signing handwriting. Gone before they get to college. Rendered obsolete by the prevalence of touchscreen keypad, fingerprint readers, and Siri's future grandchildren.

An interesting article debating the demise of cursive explains that handwriting has not actually been around that long and its demise has been predicted before. The article mentions that an observer in 1955 in the Saturday Evening Post complained somewhat hilariously:

“Nowadays people compose all their letters on a typewriter, or dictate them to a tape recorder, or sign them with a rubber stamp, and, as a result, the muscles of the thumb and forefinger which were formerly employed to grip a pen have fallen largely into disuse, except for picking olives out of Martinis or occasionally pinching stenographers in crowded elevators.”  

How very Mad Men!

Still it surprised me to hear that my son's third grade teacher believes the demise of handwriting is truly near. This is not some naive, newfangled teacher, too. She is a 20-year veteran of teaching. Her children are grown. Working in the heart of Silicon Valley, her classroom has the benefit of smart boards and document cameras which she uses wisely. Yet she is pretty down to earth. I'm sure she gardens and reads books made of paper. She commutes a decent distance to school on foot. In other words, she has her feet firmly on the ground so I cannot dismiss her prediction as crazy.

We both agree and have accepted that - like it or not - technology is a part of these kids' lives. She has taken that additional step by confidently believing that handwriting will soon go the way of the DoDo. Despite my son's messy penmanship, I'm still not ready to go there. Are you?