I was home-schooled, so I learned reading and writing from my mother. She says I was trying to teach myself to read, so she just stepped in with some guidance at first.
We used a curriculum called "The Writing Road to Reading," a systematic book with manuscript and phonics leading on to cursive in later years. It had a specific way to write those cursive letters, so I learned that method before eventually developing my own style from that foundation.
When I went to college to learn drafting and design, it was at the tail end of learning how to use traditional tools. We learned computer-aided drafting, of course, but there was also board drafting with pencils and pen-and-ink. Proper block lettering was part of the process, and anything hand-written was to be turned in with uniform capital letter text. I have hardly used cursive since.
I did technical drawing at high school and really enjoyed it. The connection to what is being designed is greater, and there is more understanding in what is being created. I work with a lot of design engineers and the older ones who started prior to CAD have a far better understanding of the practical nature of what they are designing. They can "see it" before they draw a line.
Writing is a dying art, and I think that something is missed because of it. I reckon the act of physically writing prose of some kind, accesses a different part of the brain than typing the same thing. It is also more personal - but who the hell writes letters anymore?
Oh, I write short ones to my daughter every weekend :)