Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Ann Hebble | Saint Paul, MN
Janet Gabriel | Arroyo Hondo, NM
I believe in truth and my young friends are smart enough to know when they are being tricked.
Shanon Puckett | Berkeley, CA
The only way we can truly come together as a nation, is to critically examine our past in order to better understand the present and make more informed decisions in the future. If we do not acknowledge the ugly racism and sexism that has been at the root of political action in this country since the very beginning, there is no way we will be able to completely move away from it. Who will benefit from whitewashing history? The same people who have always benefited from spreading lies and feeding the racial conflict within this country...the same people who have always benefited from these deep antagonisms. This cycle has got to be broken once and for all.
Eric James | Columbus, MS
All truths are essential in developing young minds. Shielding or buffering is one thing, but act as though things didn’t occur is blasphemous to generations who truly built this nation.
Karen Tucker | South Lake Tahoe, CA
Anita Waters | Columbus, OH
I believe that teachers should not be afraid to tell students the facts.
Lori-Anne Wallen | Bronx, NY
It's time that we empower our students with the truth.
Jennifer Dorsey | Wilsonville, OR
Learning from truthful historical events is how we change for the better. I remember as a child in elementary school constructing a California mission out of sugar cubes for a school project and being Indians wearing paper bag vests and cheap color feathers. I absolutely cringe reflecting about this. We all deserve the truth.
Kate Phipps | Portage, MI
I believe students need to learn and understand the truth.
Susanna Arnold | Athens, GA
Karen Davis | Middletown, DE
None of us are free until we are all free.
Roberto Diaz | Mcallen, TX
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” -Dr. Martin Luther King
John Gordon | Jackson Heights, NY
A nation and a people need to know the truth about their history. The good and bad of history must be taught together. Knowing the truth about the past makes a people and a nation stronger not weaker. I have always believed this and taught History this way to my students because anything less is cheating them.
Jessica Loomis | Portland, OR
history is about cause and effect. We are not in a post-racial society. The harm caused in the past is harm lived through today. We study history to understand ourselves and what we are capable of and to understand who we are today. We study history to better understand inequities and injustice that exist today. We study history so that we can have a better future for our children.
Tevin Washington | Danville, KY
Lisa Zander | Seattle, WA
Mario Garcia | Tucson, AZ
The cat is out of the bag. Things hidden can't be out back or ignored. We have a racist past and present. All we can do is try to make the future a better place, like the truth- tellers before us.
Tasha Lebow | Pinckney, MI
Setting curriculum is a Free Speech and Local Control issue. HIstory is the study of FAXcS and ACTIONS.... including the uncomfortable events. We must be honest in our content if we are to really know our history.
Maria Gonzalez | Merced, CA
I believe in teaching my students the 3D history of our nation's story.
Melissa Moore | Somerville, MA
Kathryn Grimble | Riverside, CA
Our students deserve to be taught the truth and provided with opportunities to think critically about history in order to make better decisions for the future. Our historically marginalized students learn these lessons outside the classroom daily. It’s time that we provide space and skills for them to process, learn from, and act upon their experiences in schools.
Melinda Wimbish | Altamonte Springs, FL
We can only fully appreciate our present and plan for our future if we have a real perspective of our past.
Amanda Lyon | Lake Oswego, OR
Elizabeth Frost | Alexandria, VA
I will not lie to my students about our history; the truth(s) might be painful - but they must be shared.
Brian Burak | Ypsilanti, MI
Teaching does not mean indoctrinating. Forcing people to only teach one limited perspective is the real indoctrination. Fascist, racist educational restrictions are the sign of desperation. I reject small-mindedness. I respect that kids are not idiots and can learn that more than one thing can be true at once. America can be founded on racism and inherently racist and you can still live your country. I could go on, but the point is these laws are stupid and need to be opposed and resisted at every turn.
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.