I found that too, homeschooling. "Just why does it matter if you learn cursive, anyway?" I challenged ALL my assumptions as a teacher.
I'm continually having assumptions challenged. It's fun and exciting, as well as sometimes being a pain :-).
Why does a child need to know about Ancient Egypt, and not about Medieval Serbia? True, Ancient Egypt is cool, but so is Medieval Serbia - the clothes on those folks were amazing! So why does everybody have to learn one, and nobody learns (except Serbs) about the other?