Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
William Ehrenfeld | Brooklyn, NY
Our children deserve the truth!
ANDREA SOBEL | Annandale, VA
Unless we help our children understand our history, we will perpetuate racism in our systems and our society at large.
Seth Kahn | West Chester, PA
I don't want there to be any secret about the fact that I'm committed to racial justice (and all forms of anti-bigotry) in my teaching.
Paul Sheprow | Portland, OR
My students, all of my students, deserve the truth.
Sarah Caswell | Philadelphia, PA
Everyone deserves the truth and to have their story told and we all deserve to know the truth about our country’s history.
Sarah Creeley | Hercules, CA
Truth Matters!
Lori Johnson | Philadelphia, PA
Students must be taught the truth
Jennet Tempone | Chicago, IL
Michael Jones | Madison, WI
when I became an educator, I made a promise to help our children understand our complicated world and its history, not obscure it because it makes certain people feel uncomfortable. Our children do not demand perfection from us and our ancestors, but they do demand and deserve honesty. And it is our duty to be honest with the knowledge we have accumulated, not whitewash it.
Tobey Shulman | San Pedro, CA
We can't go backward.
Annie Zirin | Evanston, IL
joseph gannon | Easthampton, MA
I will not follow any laws passed regarding the teaching of hisotry
Larina Warnock | Winston, OR
Equity gaps are especially prominent in business. Part of what I teach is how to read and respond to factual data.
Barron Barron | Portland, OR
Students deserve truth. Many know when we're lying to them.
Richard Restaino | Austin, TX
I never intended to become a propagandist for white supremacy and I am not about to start now.
James Campbell | Greenville, SC
Lindsay Mears | Dunbarton, NH
Teaching without truth is not teaching
Melissa Blount | Portland, OR
My students deserve to know their own histories, and I will not censor the collection of topics in our school library to appease those afraid of learning the truth.
Lori Madel | Rural Hall, NC
I teach Social Studies and feel it’s important to teach not only about slavery, but how the African American people have risen since then.
Virginia Teppner | Winter Haven, FL
Education sometimes involves learning difficult content and being able to use critical thinking skills to analyze and evaluate situations and fact based evidence. These skills are fundemental to maintaining Democracy.
Wendi Straub | Idaho Falls, ID
Our systems have racist and classist policies and practices and we all benefit when every student has equitable opportunities to participate in society.
Kiran Katira | Rio Rancho, NM
Amy Kelly | Albion, MI
My students deserve it.
Julie Chien | Georgetown, TX
We can't be afraid of things that make us uncomfortable or things we don't understand. Hiding from uncomfortable or confusing facts won't help us. The only way forward is to learn all the facts - even the uncomfortable, embarrassing, shocking and painful ones - so we can understand the world we live in and the people we live with.
Mary Brazeau | Holyoke, MA
My peers in 21 states face imminent threats to their livelihood by being asked to redact unpleasant history. This affects how we teach literature and Literacy. This affects our relationship to students. We will not lie to our students.
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.