Dear Mr. or Mrs. President,

I want to inform you on a topic that’s been in my head for a little while. I have many questions that I hope you can answer. I would like to discuss a topic, that connects to education. The topic is why aren't kids allowed to learn certain things in school? I know this isn't a topic as huge as immigration and violence, but I hope you can see the impact in students that I see.

One day my family had just came from seeing a movie called “Birth of a Nation”. The movie was true story about an African- American preacher named Nat Turner who was the leader of a group of men who fought against slave masters and owners in the 1800s. We were sitting in my living talking about the movie and my sister said that she was upset, upset that she had never learned anything about Nat Turner in school, besides Rosa Parks, Dr. King, or Malcolm X. I began to think and thought. In school I never had really learned about slavery at school. This wasn't the only topic that I saw we didn't learn, but many topics had came into mind like cursive writing and Black history. I thought about these topics and began to research.

I began to research on several topics, like cursive writing. There are lots of schools that no longer teach students cursive writing. I think that this is important because many schools, applications, documents and others require signatures. Signatures are the signing of names in cursive. I also have many peers that have either said that they don't know how to write their name in cursive or seen something with cursive and couldn't read it. This had me in shock. Another topic that's important to learn to me is black history. I think it's important because many big marks of America’s history, have things to do with Black history. One topic that has a lot to do with Black history is slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. I think that's important because in my opinion it's something that I think kids should learn about because each, are apart of America’s history. I have never learned much about Black History in school besides the basic leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. I personally want to learn more about slavery because I would like to know more about my ancestors. Some of these topics may be sensitive but if we don't get past them now, we won't be able to face some of the problems that the US faces today, like racism, or education problems.

In my opinion I think that cursive writing helps people get ready for many things for their professional career, and just through life period. In TIME magazine it gives examples of how in adult life, by explaining how children will soon have to be able to, not only print their name, but sign it in cursive. According to another section of the article from TIME magazine the author states that it helps children’s motor skills and to write in longhand normally helps retain information and ideas. It also stated “Studies have also shown that kids who learn cursive rather than simply manuscript writing score better on reading and spelling tests, perhaps because the linked-up cursive forces writers to think of words as wholes instead of parts.”

I also believe that schools should teach more about black history. I feel that in school, there's things that I haven't learned about that goes along with black history like slavery. Even my parents say they hadn’t learned much about. It can be a sensitive topic but I feel that it needs to addressed in our history classes. I haven't learned about it at all in school. I think we should learn about it because it's something that happened in American history that we can't overlook. Many people think that it's a topic that should be taught at a certain age. Some people even think we shouldn't talk about it at all or that's it's a black eye on the country. I think that we should learn about it because in order to get past the troubles in America today, we have to get past the learning of certain parts of American history. When the first African American man became president, it not only showed that anyone can achieve anything but it showed how far we have been through in US history. I know that sometimes it's hard to learn but it's apart of our history.

Future President, I hope that this issue is a topic that you can see that needs to be fixed. Many kids need education that won’t just get them educated in different subjects that help their brains now, but things that will help future generations to come in the future of the United States. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Cayla Artis