Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Abigail Bloom | Bayside, WI
our culture will never be fair for all until unfair privileges are revealed, and truth in recent history from ALL perspectives is key to this.
Rachael Purtell , WV
I will not be remembered as a woman who kept her mouth shut in the face of injustice.
Natalie Gaines , VT
Erin Fuson | Birmingham, AL
Ragnar von Schiber | San Francisco, CA
Racism must be named and unlearned.
Katelyn Landry | Lake Jackson, TX
Tami Fernandez | Kaser, NY
It is critical that we teach the truth about racism in America. Whites as well as people of color do not know the truth and the biases against Black Americans have spread around the world.
Shanti Zunes-Wolfe | Seattle, WA
Ellen Childs | Albany, NY
Not teaching the truth doesn’t allow our students to make their own informed decisions about our history nor does it enable them to be educated citizens who are able to make informed decisions about what is just for all Americans.
Lorin Peters | San Leandro, CA
The truth has always been my bottom line. So after spending seven summers in Israel-Palestine, I shared stories of heroic Jews and Palestinians I worked with. But after the ADL threatened to picket the school, I was given no classes to teach (but was paid my salary the two years until I retired).
Barbara Hoffman | Appleton, WI
Students deserve to know the truth.
karen jones , OR
I believe in the fundamental right of teachers to speak truth to students.
E hayes-Slessler | Medford, OR
Douglas Wingeier | Asheville, NC, NC
Like honesty, teaching the truth is "the best policy."
greeley wells , OR
Truth and realism makes for good citizens!
KIM HOLLAND | Dallas, TX
Telling the truth is the only way to confront the evils of society.
Rosemarie Pace | Ridgewood, NY
Censorship defies education. We need to teach honest history, culture, science, et al. Students are perfectly able to handle the truth. It is ignorant, bigoted adults who want to bury it.
Eric Glick Rieman | Berkeley, CA
I believe in the fundamental right of teachers to speak truth to students.
Martha DiGiovanni , CT
Students deserve sound education in critical thinking skills to contribute positively in the dialog needed in a democratic society.
Rebecca Roter , GA
Lucy Leu | Sammamish, WA
As a people, we must be willing to wrestle with and live with the truth of our past actions. If we choose to suppress and hide our history, our society and future generations will reap the inevitable harm that comes from lying, deceit, and the loss of integrity and our ethical foundation.
Frank Smith | Leon, VA
Anthony Nicotera , NJ
If not me, who? As Dr. King reminds us, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
Valery Keramaty , NY
Steve Garnaas-Holmes , ME
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.