My oldest who will finish his masters in accounting in December, **thanked** me for taking the time to teach cursive. He feels that his professors appreciated getting exams that were more easily graded. It also helped **him** see things more clearly and made achieving accuracy more predicable.
I once had an office assistant, in the days before computers, who wrote an excuse note for a patient that had visited the office. The owner of the patient’s business called the office because my assistant's handwriting was so poor she did not believe that it had come from an educated person in a medical clinic. The patient’s boss thought he had written it himself. After that I would always have a potential employee writing something in cursive. Poor handwriting was a reason for me not to hire them.
Finally....There are times when handwriting is needed. Having legible handwriting is appreciated by those who must read it. It is an indication of refinement and education.
Focal hand dystonia is a very real condition in about 5% of the population. Cursive is a theory with them.
> “He feels that his professors appreciated getting exams that were more easily graded.”
Even at its most legible, though, handwriting isn’t as easily graded as printing. Also, if your assistant couldn’t write legibly, she should have printed or typed the message (signed it, and added the office phone number for confirmation).
> “After that I would always have a potential employee writing something in cursive. Poor handwriting was a reason for me not to hire them....It [legible handwriting] is an indication of refinement and education.”
Hardly. You can probably assume that the person has made it through elementary school — or far enough to cover handwriting anyway :-) — and has some manual dexterity, but not much beyond that.