Cursive

I'm currently listening to "Small is the New Big" by Seth Godin, and on my way home from work this evening he asserted that "Cursive is a fundamentally useless skill" in the modern age.  Typing, he said, is far more useful, and if you were to create an ordered list of things kids need, cursive would not be in the top 1000.  Now I like cursive, and I wish that I had the spectacular flowing penmanship of my maternal grandmother, or of my artist friend who writes letters that look like they fell out of the 18th century.  My handwriting is somewhat cramped and angular, although still passably readable.  But is it worthless?

I am generally of the opinion that I can type much faster than I can write by hand, but in situations when no keyboard and word processor is available, being able to wield a pen is a very useful skill.  Most of my friends make fun of me for almost always having several pens in my various pockets, and I make lots of notes to myself in the course of a day.  But do I need cursive?  Most kids today use a somewhat modified printing for written work, and I will switch back and forth between printing and cursive depending upon mood or context, but I've always thought of cursive as slightly faster.  This is easy enough to test...  I made up a few sentences and timed writing them, both in cursive and printed.  The printing was actually 0.4% to 1.0% faster, which for the size of my samples was a non-significant difference.  Okay, so for speed it's probably no better than being able to print, although I do think my fast cursive is a bit more readable than my fast printing.

What other benefits does cursive offer?  There is something intrinsically emotive about it.  Years ago, my friend James explained that he always hand-wrote in his journal, instead of keeping a Doogie Howser style typed file on a computer, because he could tell from the words sloping off the page when he wrote drunk.  I keep a hand-written journal, because I like the exercise of putting the words down with pen.  Sometimes I write in cursive, sometimes print, very occasionally block lettering, but slowing down my thinking to match the speed at which I can scribe the words sometimes allows me personal insight, and sometimes just results in incoherent prose.  I also like watching the liquid or gel ink settle into the textured surface of the page, glistening in the light as it first leaves the pen and then widening and fuzzing into the dried line.

What about you?  How much do you hand-write?  And how much of that is cursive?  And are your kids learning to write in cursive?