Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
David Zepeda | Chicago, IL
We are lost without our history.
Danitra Nash | Palo Alto, CA
As student myself, I was invisible in history all throughout school. I was never told I was inferior by teachers, but the message was implied, reinforced and never corrected. The only rich or meaningful history about African Americans came from stories told by my family. What greatness are we sequestering in young minds by shielding them from the truth?
Nathan Geer | San Mateo , CA
The truth matters.
Sarah Jane Brubaker | Richmond, VA
Students need to know an accurate history of our country in order to participate fully in creating a more just society.
Jason Muniz | Oakland, CA
Drew Gingrich | Lebanon, PA
no pedagogy--no teaching--is politically neutral. Education must embrace the experience, perspective, story, and voice of all students and provide mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors (Bishop, 1990) to promote equity, justice, and liberation in the world.
Kristina Coots | Sparrows Point, MD
I am in support critical race theory.
Melissa Kellerman | Sparrows Point, MD
I believe in sharing the truth.
Debbie Clement | Seattle, WA
I strive to be an anti-racist and culturally responsive teacher.
Monica Lahiri-Hoherchak | Stamford, CT
Having an 'educated citizenry' is a professed core value of our democracy. Our students deserve to know the facts, the truth: both positive, negative, and yet to be fully understood; not a whitewashed story of American exceptionality.
Carla Shannon | Glen Spey, NY
I believe in the power of education and critical thinking.
Grace Wiessner | Baltimore, MD
Allison Hogan | Decatur, GA
Annie Daly | Austin, TX
Matthew Francolino | Chicago, IL
As Ida B. Wells says, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
Rachel Newman | Pitman, NJ
I will not teach less than the absolute truth. Only by facing the truth of our history can the United States grow and fulfill the promise of our founding documents.
Amy DeLuca | Mount Prospect, IL
Everyone deserves the right to have their story told.
Logan Block | Miami, FL
Uli Schneider | Kansas City, MO
Truth is liberating and necessary for change to actually happen. Without truth in history we are simply perpetuating a system built on lies.
Marcia Balkin | Rockville, MD
I am originally from Missouri and was not taught about so many of the things that I have now discovered to be true. When I left the state of Missouri for the military and to live in other communities I was generally uninformed and in some cases misinformed about the history of our country. I was not a good example of a great education despite the fact that I decided to become a teacher and I intend to prevent that from happening to as many children as possible. It is time to ensure that students are presented with "hard" topics and the opportunity to wrestle with them from the time they are in preschool on. This will be how the rest of their lives are, why should you shelter them in a "safe" place and then send them out into the world to encounter all of this information without support and guidance? This is not what educators have ever wanted for their students!
Amanda Cameron | Denver, CO
Jessica Sackett | Nashville, TN
Learning about what our country has done wrong is important so we can teach our students how to positively change so we can do what is right now and in the future.
Julie Kamath | Memphis, TN
Belinda Eggen | Navia de Suarna
Students deserve the truth.
Megan Troutman | Nashville, TN
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.