The reality is that even those of us who were taught cursive--Palmer script in my case--and can vaguely sort of still write some poor imitation of most of the letters, would generally struggle to read a lot of old documents. The lettering tends to be small (paper/vellum was expensive), many spellings are archaic--as is some of the language.
The fact is that you can't teach everything and, as I recall my grade school, learning Palmer script actually occupied quite a bit of time at one point in school. (And it was always my lowest grade.) You can just as easily argue for required music classes, typing classes, cooking classes, or any number of classes appropriate for early elementary school.
> The reality is that even those of us who were taught cursive--Palmer script in my case--and can vaguely sort of still write some poor imitation of most of the letters, would generally struggle to read a lot of old documents.
Yes, I can attest to that. But it rapidly becomes easier if I stick with it for more than a few minutes. If you can read it at all, with effort, it's something you can acclimatize to.
The fact is that you can't teach everything and, as I recall my grade school, learning Palmer script actually occupied quite a bit of time at one point in school. (And it was always my lowest grade.) You can just as easily argue for required music classes, typing classes, cooking classes, or any number of classes appropriate for early elementary school.