Cursive is merely a glorified piece of calligraphy and should not be a learning requirement for elementary school students. The elementary school curriculum consists of formative topics to help children understand basic concepts for necessary thinking skills, and it is valuable time that cursive should not waste. Cursive can help with many things, but other topics throughout the elementary school curriculum may help young minds form better-thinking skills than cursive. Most children later drop the practice of cursive in their adulthood because it is not useful.  Many theorists believe cursive helps to enhance brain function, critical thinking development, and increased comprehension. The benefits of cursive need to be assessed along with the outcomes analyzed. Through reflection, the merits of both beliefs require a thorough investigation, and it is with this reflection, cursive is not necessary.

  Allowing cursive to be a learning requirement for elementary schools takes time away from necessary learning activities in children's formative school years. Therefore, cursive is not as critical to children's aptness as opposing arguments may argue. In The Great Debate Cursive Writing Debate: Lost Art or Vital Skill? It begins to divulge an idea formulated to target how unnecessary cursive is in the elementary school curriculum. Text two states, "teachers are already hard-pressed to cram everything they're supposed to into the school day, especially in an educational atmosphere heavily geared towards testing requirements," which showcases the amount of necessary coursework that cursive would potentially halt. Cursive does not teach anything new or advance towards a child's success in the classroom. Creativity, precision, and mindfulness are the only beneficial factors cursive teaches, as it is not a requirement but merely a form of calligraphy.

  Children taught by the strictness of cursive end up dropping it when they are older. In The Great Cursive Writing Debate: Lost Art or Vital Skill?, it states, "Even those who learned cursive as a child usually end up scrapping the practice as they get older." If cursive were to teach the many critical skills other topics lead in the classroom, why do many adults drop it?  Core curriculums like Mathematics, English, and Science are topics that are not only necessary but vital for formative skills in developing minds. Adults often use skill sets from mathematics, science, and English in their everyday lives, but with cursive, they do not.

Opposing arguments state that cursive is vital to the elementary school education because of its many skills. As supported by What we Lose with the Decline of Cursive it states, " Other studies broaden the benefits to handwriting generally while suggesting limitations to computer-based literacy, concluding that 'teaching handwriting improves student's composition, reading comprehension, brain function, and motor skills,' and student's who take notes by hand instead of on a laptop process the information better. If these finding are accurate, they form a powerful argument for continuing to teach handwriting, though not necessarily cursive." Handwriting may have undeniable benefits but not cursive. If handwriting could teach the same composition, reading comprehension, brain function, and motor skills cursive teaches, who is to say that cursive should play a definitive role in our elementary school education? Also, with the increasing demand for technology in the education system, cursive has become useless and unimportant as it does not broaden the advancement of young minds. Thus, the argument to keep cursive in our education system is flawed and often is misleading about its various benefits.  According to The Great Cursive Writing Debate: Lost Art or Vital Skill? It states, " There are no studies that show, definitely, that cursive is more efficient than printing. Opponent argue that holding onto cursive as the bastion of the art of handwriting misses the mark." Thus, concluding handwriting is necessary but not cursive. Cursive is an art form and not a vital piece for our elementary school education.

Consequently, the article Teaching cursive handwriting is an outdated waste of time states, "Most recently, the media reported a research project as having found that students who took notes by hand had better outcomes than those who took notes on a laptop. But when you actually go to the source of the study, the results indicate that learning outcomes were related to answering two different types of questions." Therefore the data and outcomes of instilling the practice of cursive in young minds has not been proven.

Upon reflection, cursive is truly a lost art, but that's all it is, a lost art. Cursive is a piece of calligraphy and not an actual assessment of true capabilities like the other formative topics in the elementary school curriculum. Therefore, the fight to keep cursive in the classroom should be null and void.