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.