Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Haley Wooton | Seattle, WA
Jacob Thomas | Minot, ND
my students deserve the truth, no matter how ugly it may be at times.
Melissa Singer | Brooklyn, NY
The truth matters.
Ali Emmerson | Marlborough, MA
Donovan Bruns | Parkville, MD
Students have a right and teachers an essential responsibility to teach the truth by using primary source documents to unpack the context of the past.
Shannon Krueger | Minot, ND
Educators should be allowed to educate all of their students on all of their histories without infringement from the oppressive systems that ignore stories because they’re messy or don’t fit a mold of “patriotism”
Shannon Trimble | Cleveland, OH
Terra Collier | New York, NY
Leah Licari | Richmond, VT
Our students deserve the truth. They deserve to hear multiple perspectives
Sharon Smith | Fort Lauderdale, FL
I believe the truth matters. I believe that history should not be erased just because it makes some people uncomfortable. I believe that telling the truth can lead to growth, and that whitewashing history dehumanizes.
Christa Weiler | Portland, OR
Our country’s history needs to be true and honest so we can all learn from the past, gain more empathy, and make better decisions moving forward
Sheri Tindle | Independence, MO
My students deserve to know the truth about the history and current climate that have built the situation they live in. I am hopeful that with this knowledge and understanding, they will solve many problems and prevent some that needn’t happen.
Jemma Malkasian | Philadelphia, PA
Gaslighting America’s youth should never be something we are proud to call “educating.”
Ryan Walzer | Chicago , IL
Lie by omissions is a lie and our children deserve truth.
Brian Clardy | Murray , KY
We can’t allow facts to be obfuscated or ignored.
Natalie Clifford | San Antonio, TX
Jaclyn Siegel | Hicksville, NY
Sara Blum | Atlanta, GA
As a a teacher i have committed my life to teaching future citizens about this great country of ours and how to navigate it with knowledge. To truly love America you much embrace its flaws and work to right the wrongs of its past in order to create a just future for all citizens.
Jerry Lim | Brooklyn, NY
Mary Markiewicz | Leawood, KS
We all need to understand our history and how it still affects current events. Without this we will never be able to move on to a better place and keep similar horrors from happening again.
Jackson Potter | Chicago, IL
Eliza Brinkley | Chapel Hill, NC
I take personal offense at the notion that I, as a professional, do not know what is best for my students. The effective banning of open discussions about our country's history is anti-democratic and anti-patriotic.
Noel Delgado | Eatontown, NJ
it is inherently important to teach all aspects of history, even those we are not comfortable with or embarrassed by. To ignore the truth in historical events and sources is to perpetuate a myth to students, thereby allowing the same injustices to occur in the future.
Peter Blankfield | Tucson, AZ
Andres Martinez | Wheat Ridge, CO
Indoctrinating students with sanitized and white washed history and analysis of today's realities needs to be a thing of the past. Although it is understandable that some with relative power are threatened by teaching critical thinking and the truth about U.S. History and contemporary society, the decision is whether to indoctrinate or not and teaching the truth requires critical analysis. This should not be a controversial issue. Race and racism largely an American invention and to actively suppress that fact is to lie to our students about our collective past and about today's society.
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.