Signatures
This is the list of people who have signed the pledge or petition to date.
Edwin Ellis | Stone Mountain, GA
I cannot stand by and watch the state of GA strip his teachers of the right to teach truth in their classrooms each day. The only way to prevent history from repeating itself is to teach it as it occurred!
Erica Trebelhorn | Northfield, MN
Children deserve to understand history from all sides, to learn to ask questions, and to make conclusions that have meaning and substance.
Abby Whetzel | Amarillo, TX
Book banning is harming our kids education! We need are violating the first amendment by taking away books! Valuable books, might I add, that are crucial to help shape identities and beliefs.
Kimber Burrows , WA
Rome Puente | Albuquerque, NM
It’s important for everyone to have access to all books!
Kylie Budddin | Iowa City, IA
none of us are free until we are all free.
Katherine Combs | Edmonds, WA
Heather Wyatt-Nichol | Baltimore, MD
Truth matters
Ben Dietz | Providence
I became a teacher to empower young people in my community. Truly empowering students is only possible through compassionate engagement with truths about our history, our environment, and the voices of our community.
Kristen Peck
I became a teacher to help empower young people to create a better world, which can only happen through understanding the TRUE complexities of our past and present world.
Gwendolyn Russell Green | Lithonia, GA
Honest education is critical. Hiding and or sanitizing American History is dishonest and harmful to the goal of creating a well educated populace.
C WHITE | Snellville, GA
STEAM Education for Global Competency can only be achieved if everyone is at the 'table'.If it is not working for everyone, than it is not working..!!
Lake Best | Nashville, TN
PATRICIA CLEMONS | Dallas, GA
I believe students deserve to learn all of history. The good, bad and down right ugly. Let them decide how it makes them feel, more importantly let’s hope teaching the truth inspires some action.
Nora Lester Murad | Auburndale, MA
Julie Rinker | Dallas, TX
I believe students deserve access to a truthful telling of history.
Caroline Steinhauser | Tucker, GA
Eva Becerra | Decatur, GA
Marcella Simadiris , NJ
History is our best teacher
Caryn Davidson | New York, NY
I am fully committed to teaching the truth as part of a broader school and BLM at NYC Schools network that is collectively committed as well.
Linda Johnson , NC
I believe history should be taught as it was in its entirety, removing or eliminating anything.
Shankara Getchonis | Las Vegas, NV
I believe truth is integral to fostering autonomy, compassion, radical love, and radical care in students. Understanding one's place in the world sometimes comes with understanding the history of the place in which we currently live. Shifting the focus from individualized to community lead comes with having uncomfortable yet honest conversations with one another, rooted in love and care, where there is always a soft place to land, free from judgement, and there is always room for learning and growth. I refuse to censor history, I will not lie to my students, I will always teach the truth.
Andrew Cho | Phoenix, AZ
My state is eliminating SEL on the grounds that racial equity should not be taught. I refuse to hold back information, skills, and experiences that will empower my students to succeed in a world where so many oppressions exist against them.
Bethany Myers | New Orleans, LA
My children and I deserve a better America. White Americans can't keep the truth hidden forever. This country was built on the backs of "stolen people from Africa".
Maria Wong | San Jose, CA
We need to tell what really happened so future generations will know how to prevent genocide
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.