Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Manny Martinez | SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Teaching the truth is just what may save this country from itself, ultimately.
Kamala calderoni | Nîmes, FR
The truth and accuracy in education is essential.
Amy Bowton-Meade | Seattle, WA
The truth matters and the ONLY way we can make progress and heal is to face the real history of our nation. Students deserve to understand the history so they can understand the present.
Della Jones Friec | Atlanta , GA
We must start with the truth. We must finally face wrongs done and create equity, healing, repair. We cannot teach with integrity if we don’t begin by sharing facts; learning our true history leads to understanding, problem solving, progress, and makes it possible to fulfill the values we’ve claimed.
Lilly Freyer | Chicago, IL
Our country’s history is complicated and doesn’t deserve to be whitewashed in the name of blind patriotism.
Jessika Homann | Elk Grove Village, IL
My students deserve to know the truth. They cannot do better unless they know better. I pledge to teach them to think more critically and empathetically than I was, so that they might see the world as it is, and move forward to make the changes necessary for a better future.
David Clot | Villa Park, IL
I believe students deserve to be taught the truth about history so that they can become better ambassadors of the future.
Leslie Madorsky | Chicago, IL
Patrick Ashwood | Cedar Falls, IA
History is not a patriotic parade. The United States became a powerful and rich country because of its workers, mostly paid low wages, or in servitude, or slavery. History is often not very pleasant, but it isn't some fairytale to make you feel good or a way to justify inequality. The truth needs to be told, not suppressed. The ignorance of the Republican Iowa legislature on black history is remarkable.
Gilda Bloom-Leiva | San Francisco, CA
The truth counts!
Daryl Jackson | Pelham , NY
Teaching the truth is key
Linda Aguinaga | Avon, OH
I will not allow bullies to silence me and prevent me from teaching my students all of US History. They deserve nothing less than the truth.
Jessica Hodges | Chicago, IL
Students need and deserve to know the truth.
John Mink | Albany, CA
As a social studies teacher and author/editor of the book "Teaching Resistance" (PM Press, 2019), I feel it is vital to respond forcefully to the deeply reactionary, repressive top-down push to force teachers to lie in the service of jingoistic, racist, hypernationalist and deeply cynical attempts to roll the clock back to a "better" time that never really existed for most people in this country.
Myia Johnson | Aurora, CO
My students matter. Their families matter. It's wrong to cover up the truth.
Douglas Brown , IN
All stories matter when it comes to history. All history matters. All stories have a perspective. All perspectives matter. The forces that want to sanitize and censor history want to control the hearts and minds of the people. Freedom of thought is endangered. Freedom matters.
Deanna Tomasetti | Chicago, IL
I am not interested in promoting white supremacist historical fictions. Critical thinkers challenge and interrogate dominant narratives rather than propagate them.
Amanda Richey | Chicago, IL
I will not white wash our history
Steven Zemelman | Evanston, IL
Only when students understand all aspects of our history - both the good and the destructive - can they help advance our country toward its ideals. To truly love one's country involves committing to work to make it better.
Jessica Bishop | Washington, DC
Lying and covering up historical truths is not an option.
Sheila Holland | Boston, MA
Our students deserve to be taught facts, so they can form their own opinions based on them. Politicians need to stop fearing the truth - and stop fear mongering among the public. The truth gets out anyway; trying to hide it will only turn the youth against them in the long run. Besides, how can today's young - tomorrow's leaders - make good decisions without facts? It cannot be done. But the truth will set all of us free.
Sarah Cruce
As educators we need to speak the truth. Students deserve to know the true history. If they do not know the true history then how can they make a better world in the future?
Desiree Hellegers | Vancouver , WA
Students deserve more than white-washed history and white supremacist lies. The day we knuckle under to propaganda and racist lies is the day we stop having any claim to the role of teachers.
David Williams | Pine Mountain, GA
"There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party." -- Ulysses S. Grant
Ang Anderson | Littleton, CO
My students deserve to know the truth.
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.