Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Melissa Easley | Charlotte, NC
we should no longer be presenting whitewashed history.
Ella Rogosin | Chula Vista, CA
Leah Licari | Richmond, VT
Every single one of your students deserves to learn the truth - always.
Carla Ferreira | Newark, NJ
In solidarity with all teachers committed to teaching critical thinking and to making their classrooms anti-racist spaces & against all forms of white supremacist intimidation and oppression. Teachers should not fear for their safety or their jobs for teaching accurate histories. If our lawmakers don't want our students learning about racist history in the US, stop creating it!
Katie Weible | Louisville, KY
Truth matters
Christine Callahan | Burlington, VT
Elena Cortez | Sacramento, CA
The truth must be shared.
Timothy Jurkovac | Huron, OH
Systematic racism is real and needs to end.
Nicole Lamb | Sebastopol, CA
I refuse to lie about the systemic racism this county was built on and continues to profit from.
Deborah Bermudez | Santee, CA
I want current and future generations to know the truth. It breaks my heart to know that most of if not almost all of what I had been taught growing up was incorrect, incomplete, and harmful.
Kirsten O'Brien | Redlands, CA
Real teaching demands truth. Anything less than the truth is indoctrination, and our students need the truth to build a better world.
Leah Marx | Southfield, MI
I believe the truth needs to be told
Greg Burrill | Portland, OR
"Until Americans realize that African-American history IS American history, we will be helpless to solve many problems that plague us."-James Baldwin
Kevin Murphy | San Francisco, CA
Grace Hogan | St Louis, MO
Truth matters, and facts must be taught. Children deserve to learn our whole history.
Kathryn Allen | Washington, DC
Michael Bolt | Bellmead, TX
Molly Renauer | Portland, OR
I work for equity
Christopher Gyorgyovich | Pomona, CA
I believe I have an ethical responsibility to teach the truth.
Kelly Carlisle | Florence, MA
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to acknowledge it. History should be taught and it should be honest and dynamic and offer a critical lens so we can actually do better.
Mary Fitzgerald | Pasadena , CA
I grew up with Civics classes, but that's not a part of LAUSD curriculum any more.
Laurel Lennon | Annapolis, MD
Sarah Garguilo | Wilmington, NC
…I have been for over twenty years as an educator. Most of my students come to me knowing that in order to heal, we must ask hard questions and face hard truths. In order to empower students, we can’t be dishonest about the world they are growing up into. They see right through it; their very lives contradict any bs handed to them about the equality of our country’s origins or ideals. If we as educators, parents, guardians and community members are lucky enough to have young ppl looking to us for guidance, we have to be honest. There’s no way I can look at my students or children and allow them to think the disenfranchisement they experience is their fault or that they are powerless to change the causes. I will continue to give young scholars material to critically analyze and discuss. I’ll continue to give them texts to learn about people who stood up for others; who challenged an inequitable status quo; who persevered and refused to be silent while working to create or support changes our country needed to move toward being a little more equitable for all. I will continue to give them academic opportunities to learn about and openly question the institution of and effects of systemic racism and inequities in our country so that they may be far more creative than us in how to approach systemic healing.
Blair Downie | Philadelphia, PA
Megan Kilar | Candia, NH
Students deserve to know the truth about history, not just the parts we like.
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.