Cursive will disappear in our lifetimes.

I have horrible handwriting.  Actually, calling my handwriting horrible is probably not accurately describing the awfulness of my handwriting.  I may have the worst cursive handwriting in the world. 

My teachers spent a lot of time and effort trying to improve my handwriting.  In addition to the regular handwriting classes, I was assigned special exercises.  I had to attend a special handwriting classes.  These things worked in the sense that there were improvements to my handwriting but it remained terrible.  It embarrasses me that their work did not seem to have any effect. 

According to this article in the Washington Post, cursive is no longer a large part of grade school education.  In 2014, as many as 45 states will adopt curricula that does not call for the teaching of cursive.  One reason for this is obvious, technology--i.e., keyboarding--makes learning printing and cursive irrelevant so just teach kids how to print. 

The other reason is less obvious.  The second page of the article points out that new teachers are ill-equipped to teaching cursive.  Capitalizing on that problem, the article notes that a company has created a computer program so show people how to write in cursive. 

I do not know whether the disappearance of cursive is a good thing.  I admire good penmanship and will be a little sad to see it go.  On the other hand, I will not mourn that children in the future will not have to go through what I went through in grade school.