Your lack of experience doesn't matter.

Cursive is not just for hand-written notes and signatures. You'll find cursive writing, for example, used as a design element. I can see several examples right now: a decorative sign, a book cover, a t-shirt, and a small toy car.

Pay attention to your surroundings. You'll find cursive everywhere.

I disagree.

Handwriting is a skill, like any other. If you want to write legibly, all it takes is practice. I've never understood the pride people seem to take in their inability to write legibly.

Have you seen Russian cursive? If what you're saying is true, it would completely explain the fall of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Russian economy in 1998, Rocky IV, etc. without the need to consider any other external factors.

This is pretend history. The anti-phonics things was much earlier (early 20th century, search for Horace Mann) and only hung around because of idiots who refuse to let go of terrible ideas. This is how we got "balanced literacy" in the 1990's, which combined phonetics with Mann's "whole language" nonsense. (If your kids were taught "sight words", this is probably why.) In the 2000's, the emphasis should have been on these five concepts: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Like all bad ideas, Mann's bullshit is still hanging around, passed down like herpes from one generation of teachers to the next. At least, among those that prefer received 'wisdom' over modern science. Teachers, particularly older teachers, require a surprising amount of supervision if you want them to adopt modern techniques. (This is according to a friend of mine who worked as a principle and later superintendent of a local private school.)

The problem, in this case, isn't school boards, but individual teachers. Also, if you don't like your school board, learn how to vote.

That's because you live in a fantasy land, as evidenced by your post. Relax, not everything is a conspiracy.

my son's teacher told us that it helped with developing fine motor control, particularly in children that had below average motor control.

For one, is this based on research or speculation? Second there are different kinds of motor control. Following an existing pattern or shape is one type, while cursive is another because one tends to develop patterns based on personal preferences.

Are the loops male, female, or something else? (ducks head in FL)

In 5th grade my teacher wanted to wring my neck because I was growing quite skillful in drawing and art, yet my cursive writing was worse than a drunk doctor's. I didn't see them as connected, but it was in the teacher's mind. I had a semi-impressionistic art style such that stroke precision mattered less.

probably

Such as ... ?

*crickets*

It's a typo. He probably meant 40 ... or 24 ... either way, he sucks at typing and should just learn cursive.

Wow, you clearly have some personal problem with cursive. Did someone make fun of you for having bad handwriting?

Get over it. It's not teaching people how to write with a quill pen here. Cursive writing is still everywhere. It's still a useful skill.

CursiveGPT

By definition, conservatives prefer much of the past

I'm glad Oracle is keeping the async pollution out of Java. Java is more of a business or admin domain language, and less for systems software. You don't really need that for biz/admin coding, and there are ways to still implement for the rare cases.

I guess I'm not working on "typical CRUD apps" then?

Based on your description, no, you are not, other than maybe "data stores". Sounds like systems programming. And it's rare to need such for app-level database access (unless you did something wrong or bad).

other than async and await keywords here and there.

It tends to force the need to parts that have nothing to do with asynchronous programming other than being referenced by parts that do. It pollutes and spreads like prions in a brain.