Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Caitlin Griffin | Bartonville, IL
Joan Dionne | Murphys, CA
I believe all those teaching need the support of all those that are not teaching. I believe that we can not discourage racism without being fully aware of it.
Sarah Kaney | Bellevue, WA
Susan Thornburg | Tacoma, WA
We are charged with honoring the contributions of ALL to the building of our nation. We cannot abridge the teaching of history without risking it repeating itself.
Kimberley Figueroa | Dublin, PA
We’ve been lied to for far too long.
Robbie Gill | Little Rock, AR
I refuse to allow the silences of the past to be suppressed and lost. I will allow their voices to be heard to the farthest corners of the nation.
Katey Smith , WA
Hannah Henry
I believe all lives don't matter until Black Lives Matter in our communities and especially in our schools. I believe that education is unjust unless and until black and brown stories are also taught and learned by all people. I believe an injustice in our society will persist and grow unless and until we begin Teaching Truth.
Hannah Kennedy | Baltimore, MD
Crystal Meisinger , KS
I believe eliminating CRT from public education devalues an honest telling of our history.
Caitlin Bradford | Hudson, MA
We cannot overcome racism in our country if we are not honest about where we are and where we have come from.
Lynne Phinney | East Sandwich, MA
It is time to tell our children the truth about our history.
Jonah DH CA
Ray Craig | New York, NY
Asking teachers to lie to children is wrong. Our kids deserve the truth so that they can decide things for themselves
Claire OConnor | North Amityville, NY
teaching the truth will help the next generation to be "perfectors of democracy." "Perfectors of democracy" coined by Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Jason Vitello | Denver, CO
Lizbeth Lucero Chavez | Colorado Springs, CO
Teachers have changed my life. Education changes lives. The truth will only make us better.
Paige Kahle
Max Lieberman | Tulsa, OK
Omitting history facilitates repeating it
Aasir Mecca
I am for the cause!
Erica Empson | Philadelphia, PA
Meg Miner
Young people are smarter than anyone gives them credit for. They will find out the things that are intentionally withheld and that will damage the tenuous hold that educational institutions still have on their reputations. We promise to get students ready to participate in our democracy and we can't do that without making the causes and consequences of the past known to them.
Donna Lee | San Francisco, CA
I believe in historical truth and I want to encourage students to learn and assert themselves in a kind and open way.
kristin beamish-brown | St. Paul, MN
Hiding the truth is antithetical to education. We cannot teach our students to think critically by presenting inaccurate information about the world.
Michael Eatman | Haverhill, MA
Educators have to teach a fuller version of history. I’ve witnessed that when we don’t students resent their parents and adults in their lives for not telling them the truth.
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.