Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Amy Pippins | Las Vegas, NV
Kids should be taught truths, and teachers should not be censored.
Kari Vadixx | Tacoma, WA
My role is to educate my kids with the truth, even when...no, especially when it is uncomfortable. We cannot move forward until we all understand and face our history.
christine Hirsch | Oswego, NY
Critical or not, racism is an issue in America and should be taught despite those who do not want to acknowledge it (consider those who viewed climate change and ecology as unreal or unnecessary...)
Andrew Notaro | Buffalo, NY
The world in a classroom goes beyond just our own personal individual experiences that we have faced. I never learned in school that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the sole intention to use them for the war, and then send them off to Liberia. That whole part of history never existed in my classroom. Why was that left out?I have taught in multiple schools with multiple socioeconomic statuses, and there is so much disconnect. Many teachers need to understand the struggles that exist out there in the world for POC, along with students. Whitewashing history to make America seem like the perfect place doesn’t do anyone any justice. The way you learn is to analyze mistakes and build on them. That is when we can make true change and start building a country where everyone succeeds.
Alicia Williams | Issaquah, WA
Sam Becker | Worthington, MN
I believe in teaching the truth, being transparent, and equipping all students with the knowledge of history as they move forward.
Stephanie Hammel | Arlington, VA
Racism is real today and can be traced back to the foundation of the United States which was built on white supremacist ideas. More information about this historical truth leads to action, not guilt.
Ednie Garrison
I have spent my entire life watching racist, sexist, homophobic, colonialist hate mongers try to prevent children from knowing the reality about our culture and history, and I am tired of having to work so hard to unbrainwash my students and then strategize ways for them to heal in the face of the deep sense of betrayal they experience when they learn a more truthful history.
Molly McGinnis | Grand Haven, MI
I became an educator because of education’s ability to make a positive change for marginalized groups. I refuse to jeopardize the safety of my minority students for the comfort of white supremacists.
Jolie Valentine | Canton, MI
I did not learn about Vincent Chin’s murder until I was in my 30s, even though he was killed a half hour from my home when I was 6. I did not learn about white Detroiters attempting to lynch Dr. Ossian Sweet until I was in my 40s, although I was assigned To Kill a Mockingbird multiple times. I did not learn the racial history of my own state, including sundown towns and redlining and restrictive covenants, or why my hometown had no Black residents, until middle-age. My students deserve better than I received — they deserve to know about their state and their community in age-appropriate ways, without huge important chunks of history being removed or sanitized to avoid hard conversations about race, privilege, power, and hatred. Kids see these things in their own lives and it is dishonest for adults to prevent them from having opportunities to learn and think and practice working through them. True and meaningful pride comes out of hard work.
Keith Morris | Albuquerque, NM
Kids need to learn what the USA actually did, all the harm it's caused, and not the Carlson/Rufo/Confederate mythology
Kyle Brown | Katy, TX
I feel they deserve to hear to truth, to struggle with it, and to reconcile with it. It is an insult to lie to them because some aren’t capable of accepting the true history of our country.
elizabeth mancini | Middletown, CT
Students need to understand issues from a variety of lenses and perspectives.
Kourtne Ballentine | Los Angeles, CA
Honesty is the only way out of our problems.
Jonathan Beach | Sacramento, CA
My students and the future citizens/voters of this country deserve to learn the whole truth about the history of this country and the role it has played in shaping the world we know today.
Kathryn Marocchino | Vallejo, CA
I stand in solidarity with all the K-12 teachers who are being denied their right to teach the truth. As a professor within the California State University System, I am proud to know that our public institutions of higher learning have every intention of teaching CRT this coming fall semester, and will be closely scrutinizing in the classroom all the prejudice and racial inequities this country has perpetuated for years on minorities. Stand strong, educators! Don't let them win! If they try to stop you from teaching the truth, teach the truth anyway! And if they try to stop you again, every single one of you should walk off the job en masse! They can't fire every one of their teachers!
Amber Eby | Washington, DC
Sarah Nelson
Our democracy depends on an educated populace.
David Lee Carlson | Phoenix, AZ
Tu Lieu Gross | Studio City, CA
Truth matters. No good can come from sweeping our history under the rug.
Jennifer Robinson , WI
we cannot destroy American history, true American history.
Patricia Smith | Tacoma, WA
Healing requires that we tell the truth
kristin Miller | Whitestone, NY
I pledge to continue to teach the truth.
manno anthony | Alameda, CA
Two sources have guided me over the years:American Slavery, American Freedom, by Edmund Morgan, andthe Virtual Jamestown website.Through them, I discovered that Virginia’s planter class essentially created the concept of race in order to create racism, and separate poor whites and blacks from uniting to topple the corrupt Virginia order of things. With the settlement of South Carolina, that oppression deepened and spread.
Angela Russo | Tampa, FL
We need to learn from the past, not cover it up.
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.