Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Jamison Kelleher | Lakewood, WA
“Because there is a war going on that the poor can’t win”
Sara Quinn | Atlanta, GA
Hector Luevanos | Humble, TX
Signed and delivered
Qorsho Hassan | Saint Paul, MN
Heather Reed | Oakland, CA
Elizabeth Forehand | Eau Claire, WI
Bill Gilson | Wolcott, VT
It is important that we all understand the full history of the United States.
Kevin Edwards | Kansas City, MO
Making laws to hide past injustices are immoral and wrong. Unlike the politicians in this state, I teach the truth, not try to hide behind it like cowards.
Berry Craig | Arlington, KY
...Kentucky is among the states "attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history." Two right-wing Republicans have prefiled two anti-CRT bills for the January session of the General Assembly. I am also a big Zinn fan. My copy of A People's History is well thumbed and underlined. I recommended it to my students. I still recommend it to my union brothers and sisters and anybody else who wants the unvarnished truth about American history.
Marina Reis | Los Angeles, CA
Kelly Shomper | Minneapolis, MN
This is important and right.
Yvette Silver | Brooklyn, NY
Students deserve to know the truth and be granted the freedom and independence to form their own opinions and to arrive at their own conclusions, based on the trusted facts they hear from their teachers mouths.
Elizabeth England | Wolfeboro, NH
we can only change the present and future by taking off the blinders of the past.
Kathryn Bell | Pebble Beach, CA
This is critical work.
Paula Salvio | Durham, NH
Libby Merrill | East Providence, RI
I want my own white child to know the truth about our history early so she can be a better co-conspirator in the work towards a more racially just society from the start. I do not want to stunt her humanity and growth by teaching her lies and white-washed history that she will have to unlearn later. As a school administrator I believe that teachers cannot teach effectively unless they have confronted their own racial biases. I want to raise a generation of future teachers who will truly be able to cultivate the inner brilliance of all of their students.
Amanda Mosley | Iowa City, IA
I refuse to teach lies to students. As an educator, my responsibility lies in helping students become the best humans they can be by helping them to understand themselves and the world they live in. They need the truth to understand both.
David Barber | Martin, TN
Lizandaa Alburg | Paterson , NJ
I know the power of teaching the truth. The truth is not subject to opinion, acceptance or approval. If I present the facts from all perspectives, the truth cannot be denied. I am a Founding Member of a group called the Passaic County Equity Seekers and we promote teaching the truth in an effort to attain racial equity and social justice.
Heidi Bisson | Oak Park, MI
The true history of the United States must be available/ shared/ taught.
Ted Dreier | Portland, OR
Leah Michaels | Rockville, MD
my students deserve to learn the truth and they can be trusted to think for themselves about what that means.
Tamara Arrington | Olympia Fields, IL
Molly Cavanaugh | Bronx, NY
The black and brown students in my classroom deserve to learn true history, and so do their white peers who are not in my classroom due to the continued, systemic school segregation and inequality in cities like New York.
James Russ | Newberg, OR
we must stay together or we will fail
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.