> What I hated was spending three years learning to print--having to use those little letter guides, and the paper with the two solid lines and the dashed line in the middle. Then, when I was *finally* getting used to that--*WHAMMO*--cursive writing. Forget everything you learned about printing, here's a *new* way to write! Yay! Thanks! Why didn't you just teach me this in the FIRST place if this was what you were going to demand I do eventually anyway?
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> So then it was Mandatory Cursive Writing for several years, until we were finally judged adult enough to choose ourselves. At which point I immediately went back to printing, mostly out of spite. I don't think I've written anything in cursive for about 5 or 6 years. I try not to print anything either--that's why I learned to TYPE, so I wouldn't *have* to write things out long-hand.
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> -- Dave

Well, Dave, there's a theory about that. It has something to do with the size of a little kid's hands. Also, primary teachers think that printing is good background for cursive. You just learn to hook the letters together. I'm not sure I buy into any of this, but my experience was with 5th - 9th grade students. Primary teachers are the ones that really know their stuff.

Joke: A second grader came home from school and told his mom that they were going to learn to write cuss words. A quick call to the teacher revealed that they were going to learn to write cursive. (True story, I think)
Howard