Why did we learn Cursive Writing?

Whatever you learn in your lifetime would be useful one day…is it true? Well… at least not for cursive writing in US.

I remember initial school days when we had to practice for endless sessions of cursive writing…how we used the four-lined notebooks for the painful sessions…how the r’s had to join the s’s in words to form elegant words….how we were graded based on the neatness and ‘cursiveness’ of the words and how we used to be excited/disheartened by it!

So in my entire career as of now, I had been proud of my handwriting and cursive writing skills…it is so easier and faster to write in, there is no need to constantly pick up the pencil and put it down again…

Unfortunately, all that learning seems to be gone in vain! Now in my school writings in US, I have to try and use ‘printing’ or ‘block ‘style writing. In this style of writing, the letters of a word are unconnected, and in "print-writing", which is a cross between cursive and printing, some unconnected letters and some connected letters are used. Why can’t I use cursive anymore??? Because Cursive writing is now denounced as out-of-date and obsolete!! Other technical reason cited: Cursive can't be used to fill in forms, and confuses OCR software, including the machines used to sort mail!!

So nowadays, my effort is going in unlearning the cursive writing skills and practising the block writing…childhood days are back again….aaahhh…!