Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Mary Vogt | Portsmouth, NH
Sick of the government punishing people for telling the truth.
Debbie Blane | Issaquah, WA
So much of the "real" history of this country has been minimized, hidden, obscured. I want our youth to learn our true history long before the age that I was when I began to.
Mary Cowhey | Florence, MA
It is our duty and responsibility to teach the truth in history. When we teach the truth, with all of its messy contradictons, students become more engaged in our democracy. We need that now more than ever.
Tracy Smallacombe | Carthage, NC
This is appalling. Our next generations deserve the truth. How else can we learn from our mistakes?
Ary Nassiri | Orange, CA
We need honest education for youth to help them understand their role in the world, how systems have lead to unfair treatment for people in need.
Jessica Titus | Downingtown, PA
Leslie Grinner | Providence, RI
I am committed to anti-racist education, including the illumination of Bigotry in US culture
Kulsoom Shah | Salem, OR
Elizabeth Considine | Half Moon Bay, CA
I believe that we need to teach the truth about our history; all of it! History is complex, and we need to teach children the what, how, and why events occurred, and the consequences of those actions, in order to effect change and justice in the future.
Nataly Reed | Tucson, AZ
-Writing is situated in social, cultural, economic, and academic contexts.-Writers scrutinize power structures and critically interrogate societal inequities such as but not limited to racism, sex and gender discrimination, ableism, and xenophobia.-I believe in the power of language to compose the future in which students want to live.
Stacy Gaugler | Niles, OH
I am not an educator, but I am a human being who is a citizen of the United States and I am entitled to the truth. My children and my childrens children are entitled to the truth. How can we move forward if we refuse to recognize our history?
Dusti Morales | Oak Harbor, WA
The numbers don’t lie.
Frances Goff | Pasadena, CA
Education - or lack of it - is how we arrived at this ignorant impasse; Education is how we will survive
Erica Conwell | Aurora, IL
We need to be able to share the different stories that has helped shape our nation. As well as help students understand how things within our society has effected us from the past and continues to influence things that are happening today in our society. "You don't know where you are going until you know where you have been." We will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes if we are not able to teach history through multiple perspectives.
Dennis Canady | Apple Valley, CA
I refuse to comply to fear, intimidation, and ignorance.
Gregory Lewis | Seattle, WA
The truth needs to be taught everywhere, both inside and outside the classroom.As a self-defense instructor, I would be doing my students a huge disservice if I didn't expose them to the shady underbelly of the U.S. justice system or speak candidly about the realities of violent crime in the United States.
Sharon Safarik | Seattle, WA
Diana Levy | Hayward, CA
Lesa Holley | Rowlett, TX
I am passionate about the beautiful complex story of America. The only way to teach it is to understand race and racism, in the past and in the present. I pledge to teach the truth to my students because I love them and because they deserve honesty in the classroom.
Jacob Galfano | Mount Vernon, WA
I am signing my name because opponents of teaching social justice in schools fail to understand that all that means is teaching young people to think critically about the society in which they exist and to use their voices -- both individually and collectively -- to make change that benefits everyone. Instead, opponents appropriate and misuse concepts and labels, and choose poorly conceived talking points... a stark absence of the very critical thinking that we want young people to practice.
Kay Crittenden | Mesa, AZ
Everyone deserves to know the correct history. I grew up learning whitewashed history, and I felt betrayed when I learned the truth. I don't want any of my students feeling that way.
Dolly Higgins | Boise, ID
The truth matters - and it’s the only way forward.
Jessica Taylor | Liverpool, NY
Katherine Dodsley | Seattle, WA
I firmly believe that children and youth need to know the true history of our country, especially the periods from 1492-1619 and 1619 to now. White supremacy and anti-black racist systems in the United states started with settler colonialism and indigenous genocide, continued with chattel slavery and Jim Crow, and persist with color-blindness and white nationalism. So long as black, indigenous, and people of color are systematically oppressed, no one in this country is truly free. Knowing and teaching our country's true history benefits everyone because when we can acknowledge the harm that has been perpetrated we can prevent it from happening again and restore racially just and gender inclusive practices that support the lives and futures of communities of color. Diverse societies are more successful, more creative, and better equipped to combat serious challenges to their survival like climate change.
Diane Elliott
It is important that children learn the truth of our history. Not all history is "pretty" but ALL children deserve to know the truth. They also ALL deserve to be seen in their schools and classrooms.
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.