A very interesting Salon article on how a conservative ex-military guy gradually became a liberal as he became more educated—doubtless an indication of why the GOP hates education. But the details of his transition are worth reading.
The whole article reminded me of this comment to an earlier blog post on italic handwriting. Italic handwriting is occasionally taught in schools as the standard cursive handwriting (italic is also known as “chancery cursive”), and Kate Gladstone commented on one view of education. From the comment:
In my experience and observation, when a school discontinues italic after a thoroughgoing adoption, this happens because the originally trained cohort of teachers has neglected to train successors, and/or because the school administrators have stopped requiring new teachers to learn and use the school’s handwriting program as a condition of their employment. In at least some cases, teachers’ or administrators’ softening in this regard has been…
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Brian By Experience 
Thanks for spreading the word!
;-)
Those curious about italic handwriting can learn more at these sites, some of which include student work:
http://www.BFHhandwriting.com,
http://www.handwritingsuccess.com,
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/08/opinion/OPED-WRITING.1.pdf,
http://www.briem.net,
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com,
http://www.italic-handwriting.org,
http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/hwlesson.html,
http://www.freehandwriting.net/educational.html
I find the most software engineers in the US are both scattered minded and have horrible penmanship when it comes to cursive. It generally means that they have not committed themselves to their ideas or at least to what they are recording.
Where as the Korean engineers I have worked with have great penmanship and generally have solid code too.
After all this time, I have to assume that there is a direct connection between the two processes.