寫？還是不寫？

Reporter： We just heard a few arguments there in favor of cursive writing. Here’s another one you may hear， that learning cursive helps young brains grow more than basic printing does. So we thought we’d take a few minutes to look inside the brain.

（soundbite from an educational video）

Man A： It is the swift and easy movement of impulses throughout the 2）cerebrum that enables us to think. But this must be established through learning and reinforced through practice.

Reporter： That’s an old 3）filmstrip from the 1950s and that bit about learning and practice， well， motor 4）neuroscientists say it’s true of cursive writing.

Amy Bastian： From my perspective， from a motor neuroscientist’s perspective.

Reporter： Professor Amy Bastian works at the Kennedy Krieger Institute on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She’s dedicated her career to studying how the brain talks to the body.

Amy： I feel like the more variety of things you do in the 5）fine motor 6）domain， the more variety of hand movements you make， will improve your 7）dexterity. Reporter： Which sounded to me like the way a motor neuroscientist would say： Handwriting is awesome. But when I asked is cursive better for a child’s development than printing...

Amy： I’ll tell you honestly， I don’t know.

Steve Graham： It really doesn’t matter if it’s 8）manuscript or cursive.

Reporter： That’s Steve Graham. He’s a professor of education at Arizona State University and he studies children’s writing.

Steve： It is kind of silly in a way that you have state 9）legislatures getting all tied up in this.

Reporter： Other researchers agreed， that cursive is good but there’s no hard evidence that it’s better than printing. As long as children are writing in school， it doesn’t really matter if the letters curl and connect. So problem solved. Or is it？

（soundbite from a promotional video）

Man B： Imagine a world without handwriting. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Reporter： This is a promo for a conference a few years back of researchers and educators， called “Handwriting in the 21st Century？” —there’s a question mark there at the end.

（soundbite from a promotional video）

Man B： Handwriting instruction is in danger of becoming increasingly 10）marginalized. What would be lost if handwriting was no longer taught at our schools？ Plenty.

Reporter： It turns out， the real fear among those who—like Steve Graham—study kids and handwriting is not that our schools will stop teaching cursive.

Steve： We don’t see much writing going on at all across the school day.

Reporter： So what are kids doing if they’re not writing？ Steve： Filling in blanks on worksheets， one sentence responses to questions， maybe in a short response summarizing information.

Reporter： In other words， not enough essays and too much this， that or all of the above. Now， some of the people who are fighting to keep cursive in schools argue that computers are the enemy. Instead of writing， kids are typing on the keyboard. But there are two problems with that argument. One： the researchers I spoke with all said that learning to type is actually a good thing for kids. And problem two... Virginia Berninger： Schools are not teaching keyboarding.

Reporter： Virginia Berninger， a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington， is a big 11）champion of handwriting and typing. And she’s worried that both have been 12）nudged to the side by crowded 13）state standards. If new standards are going to change that， teachers have to be allowed to make time.

Scott Beers teaches education at Seattle Pacific University.

Scott Beers： If we expect kids to develop mastery in anything and develop fluency in anything， they have to be doing it on a regular basis.

Reporter： Experts say focus on handwriting early and often—print or cursive or both. And then， as kids’ brains develop， gently lay the groundwork for typing. It’s not either/or. It’s all of the above. The good kind.

記者：我們最近聽到一些支持連字體的論調。你或許也聽過以下這種說法：學習連字體會比一般的印刷體更利于青少年的大腦發育。讓我們花一點時間來了解一下大腦內部。

（教學視頻片段）

男人甲：正是神經脈沖在大腦中這種簡單迅速的傳遞讓我們有了思考能力。但這種傳遞性必須通過學習來掌握，還要不斷練習才能強化。

記者：這是一段上世紀50年代的老幻燈片，而這里提到的“學習與練習”，運動神經學家們都認為這一點對連字體來說確實適用。

艾米·巴斯琴：在我看來，從一個運動神經學家的角度來說，是這樣。

記者：艾米·巴斯琴教授任職于肯尼迪·克里格研究所，該研究所設在位于（美國）巴爾的摩市的約翰霍普金斯大學校內。她一直致力于研究大腦如何對身體發出指令。

艾米：我的看法是，你在精細動作方面的動作種類越繁復，你的手部動作就會越多樣化，也就會提高你的靈活性。

記者：在我聽來，這就像是運動神經學家想說“手寫太棒了”時所說的話。不過，當我問到連字體是否比印刷體更利于兒童發育時……

艾米：老實告訴你吧，我也不知道。

史蒂夫·格雷厄姆：是手稿，還是用連字體寫的，其實真的不重要。

記者：這位是史蒂夫·格雷厄姆。他是亞利桑那州立大學的教育學教授，以幼兒書寫為研究方向。

史蒂夫：各州的立法機關都在這個問題上攪和折騰，在某種意義上，這實在有點傻。

記者：別的研究人員也同意這個說法——連字體確實不錯，但并沒有確切證據顯示寫連字體比寫印刷體更有益處。