A Teacher Asks

And it's a good question:

I do not need persuading that reading remains an absolutely essential skill, with typing, in one form or another, having become almost as valuable. But: what use now is handwriting? I do not ask this in a sneering, it's-useless way, as a merely rhetorical question. Maybe handwriting really does still have crucially important uses. If the teaching of handwriting is every bit as valuable as it ever was, I would love to be told this, and told why, so that I can proceed with my own current teaching duties with renewed enthusiasm? But, is it?

I once had beautiful hand-writing. I wrote every paper before grad school in longhand with a fountain pen. I still have a Parker ink pen, but I hardly ever use it. And when I do, my scrawl is far worse than it once was.