Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Benjamin Gorman | Independence, OR
I have a moral obligation to my students which supercedes my obligation to politicians who make ignorant and unethical policy. I will continue learning and teaching the truth as long as I am allowed to do so.
Marcie Donaldson | Marietta, GA
my students are the future leaders, and they deserve to learn to be critical thinkers and solvers of problems.
Rozlyn Grady-Wyche | Anchorage, AK
teaching the truth matters, i am signing my name because children deserve to know their true history and what has happen and what has taken place in America.
Eliza Palumbo | Tinley Park, IL
Giavanni Coleman | Hayward, CA
The truth must be taught, even if it makes us uncomfortable! This is necessary for us to build a true Democracy moving forward.
Andrew Dirks | Atlanta, GA
I refuse to lie to my students about our nations history and trust them to navigate complicated global issues with me as their guide.
Siri Miller | Seattle, WA
They need to know the true history in order to change anything and really understand the systems in place today.
Alex Cooper | Seattle, WA
Without learning about the history of racism in this country and the ways in which it persists today, students will be unable to understand why the world is the way that it is. They may be left with the disheartening conclusion that our current injustices are somehow natural. Understanding how and why people have created systems of injustice is the only to begin dismantling those systems and building a better world.
Neil Slobin | Cleveland, OH
Ruth Richardson | Pasadena, CA
As a white teacher of black and brown high poverty students it is vital that I acknowledge the degree to which all white people are marinated in racism from the moment of their birth, and the degree to which racism is interwoven into every aspect of our country’s history. You can’t lie to students about history just to ensure that one group of privileged students feels good about themselves.
Robert Scribner | Bethesda, MD
Jenny Ryan | San Francisco, CA
We can’t move forward until we tell the truth about the past.
Elizabeth Merrill | Flagstaff, AZ
Without learning about past mistakes and atrocities how can they be avoided or recognized in the future? We do a disservice to students, future voting citizens, by not educating about the uncomfortable and negative aspects of history. To see positive change there needs to be acknowledgement of problems.
Andrea Adams | Ypsilanti, MI
By passing these bills, governments are attempting to rewrite or erase history which provides insight to the social injustice of today. My job as an educator is not only to give information, but to challenge students to analyze situations, discuss and collaborate with others about difficult issues, and prepare to be leaders in the future. We do not accomplish this by starting with lies.
susan rich | Albuquerque, NM
Valarie Gold | Austin, TX
It is my duty as a 1st year teacher to strive to be a culturally responsive educator.
Candace Truitt | Odenton, MD
My job is to teach students and not to lie or gloss over parts of our shared history. A subject like music must have cultural connections and significance if students are to learn such a deeply diverse and wide ranging art form. Those cultural connections are key.
Kristine Morrow | Philadelphia, PA
There can be no reconciliation in this fissured nation, there can be no meeting the aims of justice and equality intrinsic to the democratic ideal; there can be no end to the discrimination, injustice and violence so much more widespread in this democracy than than among our democratic peers without the truths of the past being fully told.
Charles Smith | Beloit, WI
the students I teach deserve to know the truth about their country’s history. I will not teach a whitewashed version of US history to promote an agenda that supports ignorance.
Aimee Nixon | Vancouver, WA
The truth matters.
Mara Fulmer | Flint, MI
The notion that educators cannot teach subjects that might make someone feel uncomfortable about their view of the world around them, and themselves, is ridiculous. It’s called critical thinking. Challenging our perspectives and learning new ways of viewing and understanding history and current events and each other is vital to the development of an educated and thinking populace.
Joanne Klein | Boise, ID
If it isn’t messy, it isn’t history.
Rhett Savage | Portland, OR
I think it is important to let teachers teach.
Emily Solberg | Berkeley, CA
I teach FACTS.
Amber Thornton | Milwaukee, WI
If we don’t teach our youth the true history, we are destined to repeat it. Our students deserve to know accurate history, not a censored version like something from a dystopian novel.
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.