I’M RETIRED AND SO IS EVERYONE ELSE!

I’m afraid that we are dumbing down America. Recently a number of states have no longer required handwriting be taught. The one personal thing about each individual is his or her handwriting. You are unique, and you handwriting is an expression of your personality and even in some cases how you feel. To do away with teaching such an important art is a shame When I think about how Mrs. Walsh my third grade teacher stressed it, then Mrs. Bowman, my fourth grade teacher, I cringe. They stressed good penmanship, and the need to communicate.

Then there is mathematics. I recall going into a classroom for math all through my education, and not once was I allowed to carry let alone use a calculator. If I produced a calculator, one of two things would happen: 1) It would be taken away from me, and 2) I would have been accused of being lazy and a cheat. Today, kids are free to take a test with a calculator! How the hell are they teaching these kids today? If anything, using your brain could help fight Alzheimer’s disease.

Then there is ‘spell-check’ that handy program that is supposed to correct your spelling AND your grammar, if you let it. (I do) What good does it do? It takes you away from thinking about how you write something, you can then ignore the rules of grammar and soon, yes soon, we will eliminate English as a subject matter. It will probably be replaced by downloading apps, 101.

Remember worrying about parallel parking for your drivers test? Remember how you would practice it for hours so you could do what was considered the most important and hardest part of the driver’s test? Now cars can do it automatically for you. It makes me angry because it came too late. I already spent countless hours behind the wheel learning it and countless more teaching it to my two sons!

Good gosh, you don’t even need to look before you back out of your driveway any more, the cars of today tell you a car is approaching!

I like the idea of being safe and being able to handle a dangerous thing like an automobile, but some of these ‘improvements’ are not to my liking.

Bring back handwriting and throw out the calculator, stop dumbing down our kids!