The Writing On The Wall

Or in the elementary school notebook

Remember how handwriting was a big deal when we were young? I didn’t recall that either, until something recently jogged my memory. In the throes of the almost-TikTok ban that never was (but kind of still is because it’s not in the app store, right?), I saw a TikTok about D’Nealian handwriting and man oh man, was that a nostalgia trip. I hadn’t heard the word “D’Nealian” in years. And I never even knew it was spelled like that! TikTok user @jennmartinelleee shared a video from Instagram user @itslindsaycarter, who was showing off that she still writes in D’Nealian, and responded by saying, “What is she talking about? Are you telling me that we were supposed to learn handwriting fonts that had names?”

A lot of people in the comments were confused, whereas others stated that they had also learned this type of handwriting (some of whom opined that the original creator’s “D’Nealian” wasn’t real D’Nealian). And I’m in the latter group—I remember learning D’Nealian! (I also noticed that the creator’s D’Nealian was different from what I’d learned, but I see no need to get into a debate about it.) I don’t know if everyone else in my elementary school stuck with this “font” past kindergarten the way I did, and I know that when I moved to a new school district for middle school, my handwriting was considered weird. People said it made them dizzy, and at some point a teacher marked my answer wrong because she couldn’t read what I wrote. The curls and swirls of my writing simply weren’t for everyone. So over the years, I slightly shifted my handwriting, but the D’Nealian definitely stayed to an extent, and still shows up in my to-do lists and journal entries now.

I was also told in elementary school that my handwriting was huge. Teachers would challenge me to fit a certain number of words on each line, and my fellow students would say that I was writing in big letters as a way to look like I was writing more. But it was just how I wrote! In any case, that part was probably not connected to this unusual “font” I was taught to write in.

Apparently, D’Nealian was created to teach kids how to write better in cursive. This makes me laugh because I can’t stress enough how much I’m unable to write in cursive, save for my signature. I recall a being given a notebook in second grade that was specifically for learning cursive. My class then proceeded to have one, maybe two lessons about cursive all year. As far as I can recall, the topic was never revisited throughout my education. I was told that some of my letters were naturally becoming cursive-like due to the way I was dragging my pencil, but it never went beyond that.

Something about being asked to write in cursive causes my hand to not even know how to hold a pen or pencil. I know this because after the SAT 2 subject test in high school (another throwback), I had to write a sentence starting with “I hereby” at the end of the test. The sentence was printed and we had to copy it in cursive. The sentence was probably a declaration that we didn’t cheat, but I don’t remember what it said because of how much difficulty I had writing it after having just taken an SAT-style test that was focused on math, or chemistry or something.

When the proctor asked for my test, I wasn’t finished writing the sentence, so the proctor collected the rest of the tests and then came back to me. At that point, I was just barely finishing the sentence, still struggling with my shaky pencil on the page, trying to fit these cursive letters that were becoming larger than life onto the lines I had been given. It was elementary school all over again.

Over the years, handwriting became a thing that didn’t matter. I remember there was a superlative in my middle school for best handwriting, and even then, someone in my class said, “Who cares?” This made me a tad embarrassed because I was in the yearbook club and was involved with the superlatives, even though I hadn’t come up with the idea for that exact superlative.

When you reach adulthood, you realize that having good handwriting is not the key to garnering respect. Doctors, a.k.a. people in the highest paid and most respected profession, have a stereotype of having terrible handwriting. And that’s fine—they’re busy saving lives! At the same time, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that teachers typically have pretty good handwriting, and they deserve more money and more respect than they receive.

I don’t know what the lesson here is. Perhaps it’s that everyone has different experiences with education—I say this having been privileged with a topnotch education, but school is school and can always bring stresses. Or maybe the lesson here is that seemingly insignificant experiences in childhood can shape you more than you expect, or more than others can understand. All I know is, this is the most I’ve talked (or written) about handwriting in a long time. I tried to write something else for this week’s post, but this just flowed out of my fingertips instead. Good thing I didn’t have to write it in cursive. Thanks for reading!

XOXO,
Zola