Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Michelle Leyesa
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
Dan Gonzalez | East Hanover, NJ
Christian Montalvo | Elmhurst, NY
I believe that things need to change.
Sariah Hoskins | Jersey City, NJ
I want students in the US to learn the truth
Faye Holland | Austin, TX
I want to be able to teach the truth.
Charlotte Sparacino | Saratoga, CA
Our young people deserve the truth.
Nikki Dunn | Wyncote, PA
We have a responsibility as educators to help our students discover and investigate the truth of our past and present so that they can make informed decisions about their futures.
Rachel Pehle | Fairview Heights, IL
Lauren Peelen | Bronx, NY
it’s the right thing to do for my students, my community, my country and my world. To develop a nation of the critical thinkers we need, we must allow them to critically think about and analyze the different “truths” of our history.
David Benson | Colorado Springs, CO
Jeremy Buehl | Madison, WI
teaching about the history of country has to include the parts that we would rather ignore including the explicit pattern of white supremacy that has and continues to exist.
Fran Hopkins | Cupertino, CA
It is only through truly understanding the history of our country can we move forward to create a more perfect union.
Sophia Schuster | Philadelphia, PA
Kathy marmor | Baltimore, MD
It is very important to teach truth. It is when uncomfortable truths and facts about race and identity are disavowed, buried and deleted that prevents us all from learning from those who stories are vital to our understanding of history and given what I teach, creativity and and its rich reflection of our social complexities .
Nickie Michaud Wild | Oelwein, IA
As a University professor, I’m kind of tired about being the first person to tell young people the truth!
Alethea Maldonado | San Marcos, TX
I am a teacher, but specifically I am a teacher to incredible immigrants to our country. All of my students are Spanish-speaking, and they deserve to know our history, especially as it pertains to their rights and their peers’ rights. We cannot mask the truth. We must face it head on and discuss it as individuals and a community.
Sally Myles | Reseda, CA
In order to dismantle racism and other oppressions, they must be named and the structures that support them identified and analyzed. Every individual needs to know how they are affected by these oppressions on personal, institutional and systemic levels and how they can develop collective solutions. No one is free from responsibility -- silence, inaction and narratives that suppress the truth support oppression, create divisions, and cost lives.
Matthew Peterson | Kansas City, KS
My students deserve to see themselves and their identities in the lessons being taught in my classroom and every classroom. Teaching about oppression and those who have worked to change oppressive structures empowers my students to think critically about what they want society to be and how their actions matter. In my classroom we will always seek to include all voices; especially those that have been historically marginalized and ignored.
Amirra Malak | Hood River, OR
Holly Huckeba | Bellevue, WA
Thinking like a historian is a critical-thinking skill every teenager learns in high school. Thinking like a historian is an essential skill enabling future citizens to learn how to understand, analyze and identify FACTS. Students in public education must NEVER be told by their government which facts they are allowed to learn and which ones they are forbidden from learning.
Garret Virchick | Somerville, MA
To gag teachers from teaching about systemic racism in the United States is one step closer to fascism.
Erin Lee | Alexandria, VA
I believe in teaching our students our true history from multiple perspectives. Then give students the space to have discussions, to share their opinions, and ultimately learn from each other. We should not censor our teachers. By teaching the truth we can become more understanding, more compassionate, and better as a nation. Teach from the heart and don’t be afraid.
Alethea Work | Portland, OR
Teaching the truth matters. We can not let legislatures make reality illegal to discuss and teach.
Morris White | Los Angeles, CA
Alexis Abrams | Portland, OR
Only by learning about the injustices perpetrated by our country's institutions and examining still-present systemic racism can we move toward healing divisions and building a more humane future.
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.