We should not teach students how to write in cursive.

First of all, I would like to question the validity of my opponent's example. The benefits of starting a hand-crank car are not very significant, while the benefits of writing in cursive are massive. This brings me to my opponent's other line of attack, which is basically that my evidence isn't valid. To refute this I will give a short description of the significant information in each article that I bring up in order to prove the sheer mass of evidence for cursive handwriting. Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the university of Washington, stated that children who wrote compositions in cursive generated more words and ideas than children who wrote it in print [1]. Cursive is easier to learn than print [2]. Cursive helps with the treatment of dyslexia [3]. Cursive also helps children to read [4]. Teaching by cursive first improves literacy outcomes, as well as increases the brain's ability to integrate visual and tactile information, and to have a fine level of motor dexterity [5]. Cursive develops motor skills, reinforces learning, and helps students with disabilities [6]. Cursive writing is correlated with higher SAT scores, helps kids with disabilities, increases student self-esteem, and "cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing, typing or keyboarding" [7]. People are viewed as more intelligent when they practice cursive [8]. Conversely, If you teach a child to print in the first two years the child develops writing habits that will become permanent [4]. Using this evidence I refute my opponent's attack against my New York Times source being questionable [7], and that I have no evidence for my my claim that with printing, students tend to hit a high level of proficiency and then level out [4]. This evidence also refutes my opponent's attack on this being inapplicable to the workplace, as people are viewed as more intelligent when they use cursive [8], thus increase their chances of being hired. When a person practices cursive they simply appear more professional than someone who only uses print. My opponents primary argument is basically that cursive is a waste of time. I have thoroughly refuted this. As shown by my evidence cursive is massively beneficial. Not only is it easier to teach then print [2], but by teaching it a child learns faster, becomes smarter, their handwriting becomes more legible [7], and they actually develop a higher self-esteem. In other words there is everything to gain by teaching cursive, and everything to lose by not doing so. My opponent stated that when they say that something is outdated or outmoded it means that "we have no further use for it". Based on this definition, cursive cannot be outdated or outmoded. I have empirically proven that simply by learning cursive a child develops further. Is that a trait of uselessness? When a practice has been shown to increase intelligence, self-esteem, motor skills, ideas, the ability to read, reinforced learning, SAT scores, and people's perception of your intelligence I think that we can all agree that that practice should be continued. Because of an overwhelmingly immense quantity of evidence I see no other view than that we should continue to teach cursive, and encourage the regular use of it. For these reasons I strongly urge votes in favor of the negation. Thank you. [1]-http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [2]-http://www.abeka.com... [3]-http://school.familyeducation.com... [4]-http://www.home-school.com... [5]-http://www.montessoriservices.com... [6]-http://education.cu-portland.edu... [7]-http://davidsortino.blogs.pressdemocrat.com... [8]-http://www.today.com...