Cursive: Is It Dead?

I learnt to write with what you guys call cursive before school. The thing is, because my mom taught it to me, I learnt the standard that was used in the 60s. It was a disappointment to learn in the first grade that they'd simplified all the capital letters to look less like calligraphy. Writing didn't feel cool anymore.

I still use cursive but I've adapted it into my style of writing with separate letters. They're not all separate. Certain groups of letters are easiest and fastest to write without lifting the pen inbetween. Plus it looks more fluent.

More recently, I learnt the cursive again, but in an interestingly different way when I began studying Russian. They still pretty much use cursive there when they're writing by hand, and if you don't practice writing it also yourself, you will never be able to make out the writings of another person.

From what I understand, it's not taught at school here anymore. Children's handwritings have become unreadable, say the teachers. I guess it kept some sort of control in the whole thing by adding a standard which strived for fast reading by a trained eye (the teacher).

Jam it back in, in the dark.