Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Angelina Caballero | Chula Vista, CA
As educators we have a moral obligation to our students, our community, and our country to teach the truth of our history and how we got here. Equipping people with these truths is the only way to move forward.
Rob Wildes | Philadelphia, PA
As a follower of Christ, I must reconcile w our country’s horrid past in order to help others heal.
Sharon Clarke | Seattle, WA
You can't change the future if you don't understand the past. Teach the truth.
Shannon Corwin | New York, NY
Sine Anahita | Fairbanks, AK
structural oppression is real.
Paulette Fistikoglu | Torrance, CA
Truth matters.
WL Chapkis | Portland, ME
Injustice matters.
Tedi Mills | Palo Alto, CA
Limiting the discussions teachers are allowed to facilitate in a classroom diminishes everyone.
Jane Cutter | Seattle, WA
I am an anti-racist educator.
Audrey Arthur | Oakland, CA
Jonathan Pellerin | New York, NY
Tarasa Brierly | Jackson, MS
Students deserve to learn the truth through primary documents and texts, both non-fiction and fiction. This is what I want for not only my students, but for my own children as well. When we give them critical thinking skills and fully formed, honest information, students can and will make their own decisions about what is “true.” That is what those who oppose truth in education fear most.
Yayoi Kobayashi | New York, NY
Our country has so much work to do and this is one of the steps we must take!
Shelagh Wilson | West Chester, PA
Children need to learn the full truth about the history of this country. It is what they deserve.
Leslie Pelon | Porterville, CA
Tracy Smith | Lancaster, TX
When we are brave enough to face the truth we break the toxic cycles of history. This is how we become a more perfect union.
Elizabeth Valenzuela | Tucson, AZ
I became an educator to provide a safe space in which all of my students feel heard, seen, loved and are reflected in my teaching. I will not abandon BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrant, and disabled children because of white supremacist legislature.
Sonja Franeta | Saint Petersburg, FL
This is an attack on academic freedom and on the teaching of an important subject, especially today—critical race theory
Andrea Reynolds | Liverpool, NY
If history makes you comfortable, are you really teaching history?
Chuck Finkle | New York, NY
Randall Huberman | Kirkland, WA
Students need to be taught HOW to think not WHAT to think! It is my job as am educator to provide my students with accurate information and to allow them to make up their own minds.
Rigoberto Lemus | Los Angeles, CA
My identity markers: queer; Latinx; non-native English speaker; first generation American; educator all inform my teaching. I draw on these identity markers and lived experience to humanize myself to my students and show them how these things influence what I think and how I think about our American history. Above all, our students deserve to know the truth! The truth will help us heal!
Crystal Watford | Helena, AL
If teachers don’t teach the truth, how will the future be?
Irene Hess | New York, NY
When I was an elementary school student, I was taught the names of the ships that Christopher Columbus sailed, but not the names of the people who lived on the land that Columbus supposedly "discovered". Teaching certain aspects of history while ignoring many other aspects because they're too complex or difficult to face serves to prop up a system that is clearly not working. We can teach children about Columbus but we also need to teach them about indigenous people, slavery, segregation, genocide, racism, hate, love, political movements, etc., etc., etc.
Amelia Wurzburg | Lyndonville, VT
It is my moral obligation to teach the truth about the history of our country.
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.