“It’s exciting. When you see a kid excited about learning something, that’s a dream for a teacher — for them to be self motivated and wanting to learn. That makes this job really, really good.”

Shamara Kinlaw, the principal at Aynor Elementary, says she enjoys seeing her students learn a life skill that many believe has gone by the wayside. 

There was a period of time in South Carolina where cursive writing was not mandated in schools. But that has changed over the past decade, and Kinlaw says she’s seen the benefits of students learning the skill.

“When we do cursive writing, it’s very systematic with which letters are taught and when they are taught. All of it is grounded in the research of handwriting and cursive,” Kinlaw said.

“Our teachers, they model how to write the letters with guided practice. Short little lessons. It doesn’t take long, but they do it daily so it builds over time. We start with those letters. And then we go from letters to words, and then words to sentences.”

A lifelong skill

Kelly Vogel, a fifth grade teacher at Aynor Elementary, agrees with Graham about the excitement in the classroom. 

She’s also seen the art of understanding cursive reap great benefits for her students, many of them being quite personal.

“Oh, it’s definitely something they are excited about,” Vogel said. “They feel like they are grown up. When they’re able to write, even just their signature, or read things…

“I think about a lot of the letters that grandparents write, but also things like recipes. I think about all the recipes that my grandma left me, and every single one of them is in cursive. There are a lot of those personal family artifacts.”

Kinlaw, whose son went through Aynor Elementary, recently went to the driver’s license office to take on a major life milestone. 

And while many teenagers are excited about passing the skills test or taking their first ever license photo, Kinlaw’s son was excited about something completely different.