Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Carol Barton , BCCA
I believe history needs to be taught so we do not repeat the atrocities that have happened in the past. Our students deserve to know the truth. In order to make wise choices society as a whole needs to be educated!!!
Ruth Rosenberg | Plainview, NY
We owe it to our children's future to teach truth about the past and present!
Dustin Wiley | Kansas City, MO
There is a NWO coming
Bird Cramer | Ledyard Town of, NY
We need to tell the truth not lie to our students.
Teresa Rollins | Levittown, PA
We will continue our commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society and to develop collective solutions to those problems. We are for truth-telling and uplifting the power of organizing and solidarity that move us toward a more just society.
Sara Zisow-McClean | Baltimore, MD
Sue Corbin | Chagrin Falls, OH
I believe that children can handle the truth and that it is our moral and educational duty to stop lying to children about the history of their country. History has been misrepresented by American schools for too long now. All perspectives need to be heard. Children need to learn HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
Carolyn Claridge | Portland, OR
peter rutkoff | Cooperstown, NY
i want to teach the truth in the american story of which i am proud
Shelly Glass | Lexington, KY
We must learn from the past, in order to avoid past mistakes. Children deserve a quality, fact-based education.
Matt Church | Washington, DC
Allowing our students to thrive means being honest about the roles that racism, sexism, islamophobia, colonialism, neocolonialism, homophobia and other structures of power that oppress people interact in our communities. To move forward we must receive adequate and honest history and unlearn the mis-education of the last 3 centuries.
Patty McGee | Harrington Park, NJ
This is a time for unity, change, and inclusion of all people in education.
Nani Trias | Seattle, WA
Jennifer Brennock | Portland, OR
This is important.
Debora Kodish | Philadelphia, PA
I am fully committed to critical folklore pedagogy: how we teach one another how to be decent people and to imagine and build freedom. The full truths of the past must be spoken and known. This is a moment when we must stand up and tell the truth about the extreme violence that has been done. That continues as long it goes unrecognized and unnamed. This is the moment to recognize Indigenous and African American experience, as known and articulated and enacted from the people themselves. It is the duty of all of us to decolonize and to work to dismantle white supremacy, racial capitalism, settler colonialism and other forms of bias violence. It is the only way forward. I am grateful to Zinn Education project for its long commitment to helping us educate ourselves towards freedom, seeking and teaching beautiful community as movement tool.
Vanessa Gutierrez | Glenn Dale, MD
we won't heal as a nation until all voices are represented...
Trasi Fugate | Centralia, WA
Not teaching all history and events that have been happening in the last few years only continues systemic racism. What I learned in history classes 40 years ago is not what happened in our history. I have learned so many historic events in the last two years on my journey to become a person who is anti racist. All people need to learn more than a few sentences about the systemic racism we have in the United States.
Alethea Etinoff | Washington, DC
Maria Falgoust | Brooklyn, NY
I believe this is important.
Molly Magro | Macungie, PA
helping students understand how we've done wrong in the past in order to do better in the future is one of the best ways to show love for our country.
Ricia Chansky | Rincón, PR
Amy Schmidtke | Omaha, NE
Darcy Heath | Phoenix, AZ
Hiding the truth of our history is a barrier to equality - we have to make racist and bigoted structures visible in order to dismantle the systems of oppression in our country.
Mary Bouchard | White River Junction, VT
I am committed to teaching the truth and will do so always.
Joanna Nicklas | Frederick, MD
We are the sum of our history. To not know our history is to not know ourselves. To distort or mislead children about their history is to distort or mislead them in understanding themselves. Children should not learn to navigate their world based on an inaccurate map of reality.
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.