Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Miranda Jones | Winston Salem, NC
I refuse to lie to children, and I am not afraid to tell the children the truth. The ancestors require that much!
tony graziano | Chapinero, CO
I believe in teaching the truth, regardless of how ugly the past could have been. It provides contest as to why the world is the way it is in the present day.
Patricia Pappathan | Lowell, MA
We need to be honest about the past and face injustices and inequality if we will ever have understanding and change.
Jacob Jaffe | Seattle, WA
Joanne Brown | Elk Grove, CA
I believe in telling the truth about our history and what is going on NOW!
Susan Nichols
schools need to be a safe space for students to share their concerns and questions about the world they see around them. This includes investigating our country's past to understand its present. We need to be able to teach critical thinking and to present texts from multiple perspectives in order to allow students to see the complexities of events and people. It is imperative that we do not silence voices, particularly those from non-dominant castes, races, ethnicities, genders, or other backgrounds, and that we recognize and call out injustice whenever and wherever it occurs. Teachers should be respected to create a curriculum centered on his/her students' lives, interests, and experiences, no matter who those students may be.
Mari Gonzalez | Camarillo, CA
Amy Caramella | Bellingham, WA
Toneika Wallace | Chicago, IL
our children deserve to know the truth.
Kendra Schipper | Carbondale, CO
Brendan Gagnon | Petaluma, CA
to deny systemic racism is to deny the facts. Our students deserve to know the truth.
Stephanie Haas | Portland, OR
I grew up learning the whitewashed history of the United States. I want children to know the reality of the world they live in so they can take action, think critically about justice, and improve our world with what they know.
Alexandra Frank | Baltimore, MD
Ignoring or whitewashing events of the past has only served to divide us, and teaching today's youth the truth about our country may help to unite us. Examining who we really are is the first step towards building an equitable society.
Lynn Gonzalez | Oceanside, CA
Systemic racism is real and dismantling it begins with an honest look at the history of this country. It is my duty as a teacher to empower my students to build a more just society.
Thomas Quinn | Philadelphia, PA
RONICA PAUL | Lithonia, GA
Our students should know the truth.
Michael Margolin | Ithaca, NY
Donald Bailey | Oglethorpe, GA
I stand by right and truth.
Maureen Chase | Santa Fe, NM
Michael Hopkins | Oakland, CA
Our society deserves to know the truth in order to create a more perfect union.
Jill McLennan | Oakland, CA
I believe in teaching and opening dialogue bravely and honestly about history, current events, racism and racial struggles and successes and raising anti racist future generations.
Charlotte Olson | Farmington, MN
Whitewashed history has been apart of our country my entire life it's time to tell the truth and it's time to teach the truth
Diane Elliott
All history is important and accurate history is important. Students must learn the truth about history, good and bad.
Mary Couri | Brooklyn, NY
Joseph Davis | Baton Rouge, LA
I'M WITCHA LETS DO IT IN YESHUA'S NAME AMEN.
Selected Pledges
Click on pledge below to read many more.
As an educator who is serious about teaching the truth I will not be bullied into silence. I will do my part in the fight for equity and equality by making sure my students are most equipped to fight this ugliness in the real world.
Yes, the truth of American history needs to be taught, but also its impact on the rest of the world, such as its role in WWII. I just finished teaching a college-level course on the Holocaust, and could not believe how little the students knew about the rest of the world’s participation in the war! They seemed to believe that WWII was ended by the US alone!
“When you begin to do things that raise the achievement of the poorest and disenfranchised students, you may not always get applause. You need to be ready for that.” Dr. Asa Hilliard
“Resistance is a powerful motivator precisely because it enables us to fulfill our longing to achieve our goals while letting us boldly recognize and name the obstacles to those achievements.”
Dr. Derrick Bell
Our young people deserve the truth and it is our kuleana (responsibility) to give space and opportunity for the truth and the difficult conversations.
If we don’t teach it all, we teach nothing…
Social justice is a major theme of my Humanities 7 course, and my school uses Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s HILL framework (development of identity, skills, knowledge, Criticality) to frame our entire curriculum. Student agency through research work and essay writing, and action-oriented civic engagement work, define what we “cover” in my course.