Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Allison Meyer | Newport Beach, CA
Vicki Kurzydlo | Chicago, IL
Teaching the truth is the only way to achieve social justice and equality.
Stephanie McKnight | Philadelphia, PA
Terry Ziolkowski | Martinsburg, WV
The history we teach our young people should be the truth.
Leador Eisenoff | Porter Ranch, CA
We cannot pretend like the past did not happen. It is our role as educators to teach history to our students in an unbiased way and let them critically analyze and decide for themselves how they feel.
Sonya Neweissman | Culver City, CA
If we are not taught the truth, we are doomed to repeat the ugly aspects of history from which we were meant to learn and grow.
Samuel Forman | Philadelphia, PA
All students deserve to know how their country works and how to participate in it. Knowing how we got here may not always be easy or pretty, but it is worth it to make America what it has always promised to be for EVERYONE.
Anna Little | Los Angeles, CA
I do believe that the truth sets us free to grow versus remaining in a fixed mindset. Growing will lend to the much-needed healing for all Americans.
Kate Grigsby | Wheat Ridge, CO
Lexie Thomas | Seattle, WA
Vanessa Alvarado | Evanston, IL
The truth matters. For some, our lives depend on it.
Debbie Nakata | Pullman, WA
As a history teacher I cannot stand by and be silent. All students in our nation must be taught the true history and not let it get hijacked by the radical right. A strong country and peoples should not be scared of learning the truth about its history. No teacher is teaching it to make white students feel guilty about the past. That's just a red herring and an excuse to suppress the truth. I teach the truth so we can collectively as a nation learn from our past and together forge a better future for all Americans.
Hannah, Kozaka Giles | Kingston, NY
the truth will set us free!It is our duty, our responsibility, our priority.
Tina Schmidt | Morton Grove, IL
I stand against racism
Denise Drumel Masters | Levittown, PA
I teach in a very diverse city and my students come from all backgrounds and they need to see the truth taught and they need to see role models that look like them that have made positive change in the world in their classroom experience. We need to teach every child from the perspective of all cultures because we are all cultures in this country, none better than the other, but all equally important to learn about so we can create a country of unity rather than dissension.
Alisa Algava | Brooklyn, NY
Education for liberation can and will happen in collectivity.
Nicole Reynolds | Skokie, IL
I believe in the education of the truth of our history. Kids should know and understand why things are the way they are now due to what’s happened in our history, be able to make their own decisions going forward, and start to work toward change in our country!
Amy Caramella | Bellingham, WA
Peter Haslam | Salt Lake City, UT
Hiding America's true history from students is doing more harm than good. It's important to learn from our mistakes instead of run away from them.
Luisa Karimighovanloo | Chicago, IL
it matters to teach the true history of this land.
Christine Mbah | Prospect Heights, IL
My black students matter. Their representation matters. Their truth matters. Their history matters. Their art matters. Their contributions matter. Their voices must be heard.
Sara Hackett | Santa Clara, CA
It is the only way. We need to do better, much better.
Hanna Allen
Our children should know the truth so they can improve things in the future.
Alicia Argento | Bayville, NJ
James Iddins | Indianapolis, IN
1. We can only grow as a society if we face our collective sins and challenges head-on.2. I respect my students enough to give them the full truth (good, bad, & ugly) and allow them to think critically about it, drawing their own conclusions. 3. One of the core values of the United States is Free Speech. We can't have it both ways, saying that speech can only be "free" when we agree with it. No one respects a hypocrite.
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.