With pencils firmly grasped in little hands, a third-grade class at Riverbend Elementary School practices the swoops and loops of cursive writing.

Judging by the looks of serious concentration on the youngsters faces, learning to write in cursive is the same challenge it has been for all the generations of children who learned the skill before them. But times have changed, and new skills are replacing the old — even when it comes to cursive.

“Cursive writing is not in the new common core curriculum standards, and we’re not surprised,” said Haywood County School District Associate Superintendent Bill Nolte. “School curriculum reflects the needs of society. It doesn’t create the needs of society. We don’t have a lot of time to teach something they’re not using. I know that it’s a very ...