I tHink my gen was probably about the last to learn cursive . Kids today cant even tell time using analogue clocks anymore. Thankfully my sister pulled her kids from public schools and thry learned from Abeka home schooling, so they got a good education, and learned all the “old-timey” lessons that we all used to learn.
When i say i learned the hyphen use early in life, i didnt uxe it in school- just for,informal writing, which back then was paper and pen, not keyboards and cell phones. So g,ad i grew up without all thr electronic garbage of today! We got pur entertainment outside, in the neighborhood, being active rambunctious kids- life rrally was a lot better in those days. Healthier too.
Out morning began with the Pledge, the National Anthem, then it everyone standing up and doing that day's multiplication orally; sit down, get your straight pen, open the inkwell and do a page that that week's letter, which you'd have to do again, with the other letters you knew, for part of your homework.
Inkwells and straight pens were long gone by the time my progeny came along,the penmanship lessons weren't as rigorous, and it all went rapidly down hill for the Millennials and the Gen Zers! :-(
FREE TIME PLAY? That's long gone! Today and for a while now, kids are overly programed, there are too damned many helicopter parents,far too many electronic things given to far children at far too young an age, and I don't think the kids have as much fun and children used to.