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๐ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ท๐ด ๐ฌ๐ช๐น๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ช๐ต ๐ ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐น๐ป๐ธ๐ซ๐ช๐ซ๐ต๐ ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ฎ ๐ถ๐ธ๐ผ๐ฝ ๐ฏ๐พ๐ท ๐ฝ๐ธ ๐๐ป๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ฎ, ๐ฝ๐ฑ๐ธ๐พ๐ฐ๐ฑ ๐ต๐ธ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ฌ๐ช๐ผ๐ฎ ๐บ ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐ช๐ต๐ผ๐ธ ๐ช ๐ผ๐ฝ๐ป๐ธ๐ท๐ฐ ๐ฌ๐ธ๐ท๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ท๐ญ๐ฎ๐ป.
I'm 39 as well, and up until 10th grade it was mandatory, only afterwards it was left to us to choose. And that's across all subjects.
We were not allowed to use computers to prepare papers in high school until grade 12 I think.
I'm older than that and I can't believe your teachers actually wanted to try decipher shitty kid writing. After like 6th grade for me everyone pretty much turned up their noses at anything that wasn't typed, and as a teacher now I can say I hate when my students try to hand in something handwritten.
Even before computers I think at least at the college level using typewriters was pretty common. When I was a kid I found a stash of college papers from my folks and a lot of it was done on a typewriter.
They didn't want to decipher it, if our handwriting was bad, we got points deducted or could ultimately fail.
My handwriting is still shit though.