Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Liza Gesuden | Long Beach, CA
it is important to tell the truth about the history of white supremacy and all forms of oppression in the United States.
Jessica Barlow | San Diego, CA
Elivin Gueston II | Vallejo, CA
I refuse to lie to my students about history.
Christopher Rapisarda | Chicago, IL
I believe in people and their lived experiences.
Lee Foulkes | Tucson, AZ
I have taught History for 17 years, and I don't like to suppress the truth about what has happened historically.
R.C. Miessler | Gettysburg, PA
I stand with teachers in K-12 trying to teach our students how to be antiracist.
cristina carella | Palo Alto, CA
Being in the business of shaping and molding minds, future generations must to be taught the truth about our nation's history so that our country can stand a chance at racial and social justice and healing.
melice stuckey | Chattahoochee Hills, GA
I am an educator who is impacted
Jenessa Hope | Seattle, WA
I will not lie to the children in my care. Only the truth will allow us to come together and move forward toward justice.
Michele Levin | Los Angeles, CA
Students deserve to know the history of this country. Hiding the truth is the game plan of fascists. My students have the right to make informed decisions about their futures and they can't do that without curriculum that includes primary sources, first person narratives, documents, the truth.
Sam Musher | Cambridge, MA
Middle school students already know how to read the literal words on the page. The point of continuing to teach them literacy skills is for them to learn how to think critically about what they read.
Tacy Bigelow | Coupeville, WA
When we fail to teach our honest truths as a country and society we are bound to remain in a miasma of inequity and ignorance. If we are not teaching truth to our students, we are teaching lies. This country's future deserves better.
Gabriela Mitchell | Indio, CA
I believe truth-telling in the school curriculum is critical for educators to build trust with their students.
Guadalupe Cardona | Los Angeles, CA
the truth is the foundation to building a strong movement for change based in love and transformation.
Abigail Rombalski | Minneapolis, MN
Kathy Berenson | Gettysburg, PA
although I am not (yet) being asked to lie to my own students (undergrads in Gettysburg, PA) I stand 100% with the educators in my town and elsewhere who are already being targeted for their commitment to teaching students the truth about oppression and injustice.
Michael Svec | Greenville, SC
Brian White | Littleton, CO
Teaching the truth is critical to understanding history so we can grow beyond the social constructs that continue to impact equity and access in the United States.
Ronni Cook
We learn from our mistakes. Only the truth will provide opportunities to learn and understand.
Wendy Logue | Littlestown, PA
Truth of history needs to be taught
Kathleen Byrne Heidecker | Gettysburg, PA
All students are curious, thoughtful, and able to think for themselves. Teaching them about the history of the United States using primary sources and narratives from previously excluded voices will only make our nation stronger.
Kristine Sieloff | Baltimore, MD
We owe our students the opportunity to think critically about the origins of racism in this country so that they can tear down and rebuild oppressive systems.
Tammi Garcia | Chicago, IL
I believe my children deserve to live a life of truth.
Michael Melosh | Westminster, CO
I refuse to purposefully give my students false or misleading information because I respect them.
Vahid Avdic | Chicago, IL
to not teach about systemic injustice throughout history is to not really reach history at all.
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.