The Arts of Athens I Hate My Project for School
Teachers Reject to Lie to Students
More than 8,000 teachers from across the United states of america take signed the pledge to teach history honestly. This is an act of resistance to the GOP bills in at least 41 states that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.
The pledge states: "'One has non only a legal, merely a moral responsibility to obey but laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.' – Martin Luther Rex Jr. ("Letter From Birmingham Jail," April 1963). We, the undersigned educators, decline to lie to immature people about U.S. history and current events."
We share some of the pledges below. In that location are many more. In addition to signing the pledge, many teachers are organizing. Read As States Build Barriers to Racial Justice Teaching, Educators Fight Dorsum in Rethinking Schools.
If yous are an educator, nosotros invite you to sign the pledge. Everyone else, please share the pledges and tell your state legislators to defend the teaching of people'due south history.
I teach in Texas and the bill about to become police harms my students. I volition continue to teach truth to power considering my students deserve to see themselves in history, to know that their ancestors were overcomers, and that they Matter! To the governor : Likewise tardily!
Maybe the governor needs to visit my course to become an agreement of what real teaching looks like. Just in instance anyone asks. . . I proudly teach at YWCPA, all solar day, every solar day! Information technology is a very sad day in Texas when authentic authentic history is considered a threat to fragile feelings brought on by guilt and ignorance. As educators, nosotros demand to stay vigilant and be truth tellers.
—Nelva Williamson
Loftier Schoolhouse Social Studies Teacher, Houston, Texas
I refuse to be bullied by lawmakers who accept never stepped foot in a public schoolhouse. American history is not pretty, and I refuse to teach children a dumbed down, whitewashed version of it merely to gratify narrow-minded individuals. Educational activity authentic history isn't confronting the law.
—Joshua Lambert
Elementary School Teacher, Charlestown, New Hampshire
As a history teacher, I am committed to helping young people understand the past and how it connects to the present. It is my job to help educate and prepare students to be active and engaged citizens in the world with a total agreement of the ways that America has succeeded and failed to alive up to its ideals.
—Kristina Graves
High School History Teacher, Decator, Georgia
Our students deserve far more credit than legislation like this grants them. They are compassionate and they care nearly the experiences of those similar and unlike them. They deserve to acquire the truth — it is in fact their right — and it is our responsibility to teach it to them, regardless of how it makes us feel and our own personal political affiliation.
—Veronica Keefer-Germani
High School Science Instructor, Woodbury, New Jersey
Now, more than ever, educators must teach with their heads and their heart. This ways we filter out the fringe, ignorant chatter that is attempting to intimidate us into teaching selective history. History is history — information technology happened. It was not always pretty, nor was it always kind.
It is incumbent upon united states of america to teach the truth about our past, to help our students understand the context of our past, and think deeply about, and larn from our past. This is a critically important time for educators to teach truth, and do it thoughtfully, intelligently, and empathetically. It'south really not that hard, just use your head and your heart.
—Douglas Musco
Loftier School Special Education Teacher, Manchester past the Sea, Massachusetts
To teach less than the full truth well-nigh history — to omit facts and perspectives and legacies — is to teach lies, both lies of commission and lies of omission. Educational activity must be the whole story — composed of the expert and the bad and all the many shades of both in between. We must teach through an inclusive social justice lens if we are to correct wrongs and provide a collective force to fulfill the neat promise of this land.
—Sally Myles
Teacher, Glendale, California
I tell my students we're going to learn the total history of our country. We wouldn't do a puzzle with simply the pieces of a puzzle that appealed to united states because nosotros wouldn't become the full picture, then we're going to study all the stories from a multitude of perspectives and then we tin notice the truth almost who we are, and who we want to be.
—Kathy Durham
U.S. History Teacher, West Wendover, Nevada
Every bit James Baldwin reminds the states, "Not everything that is faced can exist changed, but nothing tin be inverse until information technology is faced."
—Mary Beth Braker
High School Language Arts Instructor, Chapel Hill, Northward Carolina
Teaching children the whole truth well-nigh the history of this country is incredibly important. It would be a disservice to the time to come of this country to not acknowledge the struggles that accept happened throughout history.
—Anna Gunnells
Elementary School Librarian, Athens, Georgia
I will not respect or follow laws designed to intimidate educators from teaching historical truths. Our history is full of remarkable moments and people courageously sacrificing for the greater good. Greed, selfishness, and violence are too a part of our history. To minimize either aspect is to lie by omission. To progress equally humans and reach our potential, we must fully understand our history.
—Mark Lowe
High School History Instructor, Canton, Michigan
I am signing this pledge because I am deeply disturbed by both the attempted culture war and censorship beingness thrust upon schools and other organizations all across the nation. The teaching of truth to people of all ages is essential and then nosotros tin can examine our past and create a society focused on progress. Adept teaching also means utilizing a rich landscape of stories and perspectives that are all around us and I refuse to coffin that truth as it is shared with the earth.
—Misty Crompton
Heart Schoolhouse Social Studies Teacher, Derry, New Hampshire
If we don't give our students truthful information about our nation's past and present, they won't be able to build a better futurity.
—Aimee Hall
Middle School Math Teacher, Seattle, Washington
We are inextricably linked. If we are not searching for the liberation of all of u.s., nosotros cannot have truthful liberation. We deserve to run across, hear, and read about our people. All of them. How they fought dorsum and how they changed lives.
—Christina Bustos
Unproblematic School Teacher, Mesa, Arizona
Students NEED to be taught the truth if we look them to make meaningful contributions to gild and NOT repeat the errors and cruelty of the past. They need to exist Better than previous generations. They cannot exercise that WITHOUT knowing the ENTIRE truth of our beingness.
—Sherri Lucas-Hall
Elementary Schoolhouse Tutor, Lawrenceville, Georgia
Hiding America'south true history from students is doing more damage than skilful. Information technology is of import to learn from our mistakes instead of running away from them.
—Peter Haslam
Simple School Language Arts Teacher, Table salt Lake City, Utah
Understanding the office race has played in our history only allows for true academic and social growth.
Ignoring race just leads to conflict and misunderstanding.
It is NOT about political correctness nor cancel culture information technology IS nigh moving forward with understanding and positive intent.
—Joanne Lazarus
Early Childhood Instructor, Newmarket, New Hampshire
Educational activity the truthful history of the United states of america is critical. Our chore as teachers isn't to deposit data to our students — it isn't about propaganda or creating a false narrative about how not bad this country is. Our job is to assistance students observe who they are and what they believe — and for that, they demand to know the True history of where we came from and how we got to where nosotros are.
—Patty Smith
High Schoolhouse Creative Writing and American Literature Teacher, Petersburg, Virginia
I practise not believe we can build a better future until we are honest near our past.
Acknowledging past wrongs is necessary if we ever hope to heal.
—Barrie Moorman
High School Social Studies Instructor, Washington, District of Columbia
The truth matters and nosotros owe it to non only the groups of people who accept been oppressed for the entirety of U.S. history, but besides to the future of our land to teach them our failures so that they tin can build a meliorate future for our country.
This is non nearly guilt and shame, this is well-nigh justice and reconciliation for everyone. Reconciliation can only happen when the facts are given and dealt with.
We owe it to our country to acknowledge our history and work to not echo it.
—Heather Perry
Elementary Teacher Adjutant, Columbus, Ohio
"It'southward actually simple: If y'all tin can feel pride in things y'all didn't personally accept function in, then y'all tin feel shame in things you didn't personally take part in. Some of y'all are motivated to brand this hard, simply it's only hard because yous want the glory of our history only not the brunt." — Ida Bae Wells (aka Nikole Hannah Jones)
—Kurt Dunbar
College or Graduate History Instructor, Bellingham, Washington
How is information technology possible to teach about civics without discussing racism? How volition our nation ever move past racism if it can't acknowledge that information technology happened in the first place?
—Zach Wilson
Centre School Social Studies Teacher, San Antonio, Texas
Ida B. Wells-Barnett wrote, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
I tin't live my values as a teacher and librarian and lie to children. It'due south that unproblematic.
Facing history, understanding the present, and working to challenge oppression is not always easy, but it can exist empowering when the learning customs comes together in commonage intendance, back up, and change-making.
—Elisa Gall
Early Childhood Librarian, Chicago, Illinois
I am signing this pledge considering the recently proposed legislation to dictate to teachers is censorship and the whitewashing of U.S. history.
If our kids are going to be prepared for the challenges of their hereafter, we as their teachers need to foster an honest representation of the past, while giving them the critical thinking skills and the empathy to treat all people with respect and agreement.
These proposed bills are indoctrination, whereas we teachers need to promote an inclusive history so immature people can brand informed decisions most their futures.
—Richard Doringo
High School U.Due south. History Instructor, Willoughby, Ohio
I believe it is a moral imperative to teach the truth fifty-fifty when that truth may be difficult, uncomfortable, or challenge long-held myths almost American exceptionalism.
If we lie (or leave out the truth) to young people growing up in our society, we do them a terrible disservice.
Real care and respect for students and families begins with telling the truth, a bones value that nosotros all seek to imbue in our children.
—Adam Machson-Carter
Simple English language Teacher, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
The language of these bills is absurdly vague and often inaccurate, and their intention violates every tenet of academic freedom that nosotros should hold sacred.
Teachers and those interested in education should stand tall and aver that we shall explore all aspects of the history of our country, not only those that serve an unquestioningly "patriotic" narrative. To practise less does a disservice to our nation and to the ethics that we purportedly concord, and to the children whom we supposedly serve.
Criticality does not equal hatred, but instead can pb united states of america to understand ourselves and our history more securely and thus to better serve and practice those same ethics.
—Ben Boyington
Loftier School English, Media Studies, and Moving-picture show Teacher, Vermont
I refuse to lie to my students and teach them an abbreviated version of history that erases the struggle and resistance of everyday people.
—Destiny Andrews
Elementary School Instructor, Suisun, California
Nosotros need to fight the New McCarthyism. "Conservative" is a euphemism for those who are trying to whitewash U.S. history.
They are not merely conservatives, they are Orwellian propaganda agents dedicated to silencing the by in order to enable racist violence, grade domination, and empire, and to preventing responsible responses to the climate and COVID emergencies.
Their calendar targets the well-nigh vulnerable and marginalized populations but information technology also harms the unabridged 99%, including the white working and professional classes and most of the people who self-identify as "conservative."
—Kevin Young
Associate Professor of History, Amherst, Massachusetts
Nosotros cannot become better if we do not acknowledge our past mistakes.
—Sherri Horton
Loftier Schoolhouse Social Studies Instructor, Taylorsville, Utah
Truth kills ignorance.
—Jennifer Anderson
Centre School Teacher, Wilmington, N Carolina
I am a librarian. I fight against mis and disinformation. Disseminating truth is essential.
—Ariel Birdoff
Unproblematic Librarian, New York, New York
Our district has used books based in Critical Race Theory similar Ibram X. Kendi'due south How To Be Anti-Racist for student, staff, and parent book clubs, and implemented a race curriculum also based in CRT by Mettlesome Conversations.
But hypocritically they likewise reply to parent complaints regarding race curriculum by threatening to discipline teachers and implement stricter oversight of curriculum, fifty-fifty when the curriculum is strictly in line with the district's courses of study.
Educators need to exist empowered, not disciplined or chilled, when they are on the front lines conducting these important conversations.
—Erik Honda
Loftier School English language Language Arts Teacher, Lafayette, California
Our students deserve to be taught the truth in American history.
Teachers like myself also deserve the autonomy to teach all facets of the curriculum they are responsible for covering; that includes the parts of history that reactionaries, white supremacists, and politicians who pander & enable these people, desire to gloss over and blot out in the history books.
It's the teachers who are the professionals and know their content — not these noise-makers. Permit's proceed #TeachingTruth as nosotros e'er have!
—William Goble
High Schoolhouse U.South. History Teacher, Birmingham, Alabama
Teaching history means teaching all of it.
—Jill Miesen
Simple Schoolhouse Teacher, St. Louis, Missouri
Schools need to be a safe infinite for students to share their concerns and questions most the world they see effectually them. This includes investigating our state'south past to understand its present.
We demand to be able to teach critical thinking and to present texts from multiple perspectives in society to permit students to encounter the complexities of events and people.
Information technology is imperative that we practise not silence voices, especially those from not-dominant castes, races, ethnicities, genders, or other backgrounds, and that nosotros recognize and call out injustice whenever and wherever it occurs. Teachers should be respected to create a curriculum centered on their students' lives, interests, and experiences, no affair who those students may exist.
—Susan Nichols
Unproblematic School Language Arts and Math Teacher, Lawndale, California
As teachers, we are chosen to teach the truth and hiding history from our students means lying about our identity as Americans. Yes, our history is not pretty and we have had to have steps to become what we are today, only nosotros, as teachers, are likewise lifelong learners who are chosen to shape the minds of the futurity. Lying to students ways hiding the past and rewriting the history of this country.
—Megan Graziose
High Schoolhouse English Teacher, Burien, Washington
History is literally present in all that nosotros do and I will non let those who want to whitewash it to exercise so. The circle must exist broken.
—Brian Horne
Center School Social Studies Instructor, Middletown, Delaware
The truth is worth more than the $five,000 fine the State of Arizona wants to slap on me if I permit my students to become critical thinkers.
Students need to come across themselves in our nation's history. Sometimes that history is uncomfortable, but acknowledging this serves to back up culturally sensitive instruction.
—Erin Chisholm
High School History Teacher, Glendale, Arizona
I desire to be on the correct side of history. Future generations volition talk well-nigh this moment, the mode legislators and extremist white supremacy groups used fear-mongering and conspiracy theories to stop teachers from teaching the truth.
I want information technology to be known that I was i of endless educators nationwide who taught kids to identify, empathise, and piece of work to end racism, sexism, white supremacy culture, and the silencing of marginalized voices from our curricula. Teaching the truth does not mean teaching kids to hate America. It is teaching them that we all play a role in helping our country become a more than perfect matrimony.
—Kumar Sathy
Uncomplicated School Teacher, Hillsborough, North Carolina
When our national story is devoid of truth, we are not giving students the tools and ancestral knowledge they need to make a better world possible. We are simply teaching them to adapt to the status quo. As an Asian educatee in a mostly white community, I had to seek Black, Indigenous, queer, and Asian perspectives on my own as an developed. I can simply imagine who I'd exist had I learned earlier, had I been taught narratives that allowed me to love myself. As educators, information technology'southward our duty to prevent this bike from perpetuating. Teach our truthful history.
—Stacey Uy
Customs Educator, San Diego, California
We have a responsibility to be more inclusive and truthful to our students — especially those whose cultures accept been marginalized in history books for years.
—Daniel Santos
Middle Schoolhouse Social Studies Teacher, Houston, Texas
The road to freedom hinges on the youth knowing the raw and rugged truth about the systemic ills of this country.
Through truth our young people can imagine and fight for a new world where we are ALL free.
—Tiffany Mitchell Patterson
University Social Studies Teacher Educator, Morgantown, West Virginia
If I wanted to teach mythology, I would have go an English teacher.
I tin't believe nosotros have to defend the importance of telling the truth.
I respect and trust my students enough to not feed them lies, misinformation, or oversimplified narratives.
—Matt Dale
High School History Teacher, Lake Elsinore, California
I did not learn about Vincent Chin's murder until I was in my 30s, fifty-fifty though he was killed a one-half 60 minutes from my abode when I was six. I did non learn near white Detroiters attempting to lynch Dr. Ossian Sweet until I was in my 40s, although I was assigned To Kill a Mockingbird multiple times. I did not learn the racial history of my own state, including sundown towns and redlining and restrictive covenants, or why my hometown had no Black residents, until middle-age.
My students deserve meliorate than I received — they deserve to know most their state and their community in age-appropriate ways, without huge important chunks of history existence removed or sanitized to avoid hard conversations about race, privilege, power, and hatred. Kids see these things in their ain lives and it is dishonest for adults to preclude them from having opportunities to learn and think and practice working through them. True and meaningful pride comes out of difficult work.
—Jolie Valentine
Librarian, County, Michigan
To think children are non enlightened of the inequalities that exist in their everyday lives is ignorant and insulting.
Parents and educators have a duty to help them understand what they see, what they hear, and what they experience.
Hiding from the ugly truth does not make it go away but just serves to create a citizenry that is sick-equipped for fighting to alter it.
A calculated try to weaken the populace through misinformation and ignorance is in direct opposition of what a representative government should exist and should not be tolerated.
—Stephanie Green
Simple School Art Teacher, San Antonio, Texas
Censoring history, and hiding truths is an incredibly dangerous deed in any instance. Simply in public schools? Information technology undermines our entire goal: to liberate all American youth through knowledge and critical thinking skills.
—Natalie Cardenas
High School English language Language Arts Teacher, Avondale, Arizona
Am I supposed to teach The Crucible, however not discuss McCarthy, the Red Scare, religious persecution, or slavery, which is an integral aspect of the play? Can I mention that Miller was blacklisted (a term that needs immediate revision) for refusing to speak in front of the HUAC? Tin I fifty-fifty mention the HUAC??
And Gatsby, another volume in our schoolhouse curriculum: Should I ignore the breathy anti-Semitic stereotyping of Meyer Wolfsheim and the derogatory language included, without reference to historical similarities? Practise I condone Tom Buchanan'due south raging racist rants and chalk that up to the times, or do I get to explain that this was a prevalent attitude, and still is?
If I am fined $5,000 by the land of Arizona for pedagogy the truth, they'll have to put me in jail to become me to pay it, and the state volition lose ane more of the hundreds and hundreds of teachers who have been leaving the field in the by few years.
Actually, let's just requite all of the students the cloth to read without any historical references or adult guidance. Manifestly, my state is trying to arrive clear that, if teachers are not allowed to teach, we are no longer fifty-fifty necessary.
—Steve Munczek
High Schoolhouse English language Teacher, Chandler, Arizona
As an educator who has previously worked in Thousand-viii schools and who now serves his Philadelphia customs through stewarding the ofttimes-ignored just deeply-reverberating impact of Paul Robeson, I know that pedagogy the truth, regardless of the police, points our mode to freedom.
In paraphrasing the words of Robeson: The [educator] must elect to fight for liberty or slavery. I accept made my pick. I had no culling.
—Christopher Rogers
Program Director, The Paul Robeson House & Museum; Curriculum Committee Co-Chair, Black Lives Matter at Schoolhouse, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
My students are brilliant and powerful.
Their history is their birthright. I will non rob them.
The future is theirs to shape.
—Guadalupe Ramirez
High Schoolhouse English Arts Teacher, Munster, Indiana
I'm willing to die on this hill. I cannot see benchmarks for Usa History or Civics if we remove all discussion nigh "racial bias," as the new legislation is worded in Florida.
How can I teach the Ceremonious War, Emancipation, or the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments without discussing racial motivations?
—Jeri Shaffer
Middle School Social Studies Instructor, Cantonment, Florida
Didactics historical facts is a manner to repair and create the globe we wish to see!
—Bethany Hobbs
High School English language Language Arts Teacher, Townshend, Vermont
There is no value in erasing historical fact.
To get better citizens of the globe, information technology is imperative to acquire the reality of our past and to strive for a more merely present.
—Kimberly Leifker
College Education Sociology Professor, Nashville, Tennessee
To non teach the truth . . . is to not educate.
—James Yard. Wallrabenstein
Loftier School Language Arts Teacher, Spokane Valley, Washington
I have been teaching social justice at my school for five years now. I believe that our students have the right to learn about the truth. The point of instruction is to teach our students to think for themselves using critical thinking.
—Marie Keith
High School History Teacher, Springfield, Massachusetts
Students deserve to come across themselves in the history they acquire, as they go along to rewrite information technology and to add their own narratives.
—Ericka Alfaro
Heart Schoolhouse Social Studies Teacher, Elizabeth, New Jersey
The whole story is so important to understanding who we are and how we got to this point.
And in making the world a better place.
—Wendy Harris
High School Social Studies Teacher, St. Paul, Minnesota
I will not whitewash our history. I will not allow the U.S. government to control our hereafter generations' thoughts and inhibit their ability to critically clarify OUR history.
The U.S. is an incredible nation, with a past built upon stolen country and the blood of enslaved peoples, a legacy that lives with us today.
The photo is of my female parent and me. My mom was an educator for a couple of decades and she 100% agrees with our cause and my statements.
—Jeff Erickson
Middle and High Schoolhouse Social Studies Teacher, Coralville, Iowa
My 7th and 8th graders are smart, perceptive, and caring young people. They don't want to be fed a whitewashed version of U.Southward. history.
They desire to know the fullness of it, so they can come up to a deeper understanding of where we've been, and how we can create a more but society and globe.
—Greg Michie
Middle School Instructor, Chicago, Illinois
Providing young people with authentic information about this country's past is the all-time way to help them form their own opinions nigh the nowadays and future and realize their ain agency in our social club.
—Hayley Breden
Loftier School U.S. History Instructor, Golden, Colorado
I pledge to expose racist mythology in every corner of the curriculum. I pledge to aid students place and expose the racist policies that have led to the lamentable racial disparities in American society.
If our society is to have a more than equitable 21st century, all U.S. Americans must exist able to contextualize Black suffering and articulate the history of injustice. Much structural modify and healing is needed. Equally history teachers, we take an immense responsibleness to confront racism and call it what information technology is.
—Matt Vriesman
Loftier School U.S. and World History Teacher, 1000 Rapids, Michigan
Without teaching un-apologetically honest history and the legacy that it has produced, we cannot complete our national reconstruction.
—Alexandros Acedo
Loftier School U.S. History Instructor, Fresno, California
I take a responsibility to build informed citizens not because they are responsible for the inequality of the systems or the tragedies of the past, but because knowledge is a ability that belongs to all children.
Understanding the inequality of the system will assist us make a stronger time to come together.
—Erin McCarthy
Middle School Social Studies Teacher, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I was raised to stand up to bullies. These pieces of legislation are attempts to bully teachers into inculcating a whitewashed view of our country and its past. In that location is a lot that is correct with the United States, and at that place is a lot that is non. It is our responsibleness to share all of that with our students, and to inspire them to embrace the good and change the bad, and the wisdom to tell the difference.
—Kevin Attaway
High School Social Studies Instructor, Madison, Wisconsin
I will not just comply with racist laws, or exist disrespected, dismissed, and traumatized by administrators and political leaders who proudly inflict harm on BIPOC students, families, and educators across the nation.
In the words of Angela Davis, "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
—Trechiondria Lathan
Uncomplicated School Instructor, Iowa City, Iowa
The teaching of history equally a subject and soapbox requires us to take students contend with difficult historical truths that illuminate gimmicky realities.
Beyond education the content knowledge and skill sets of historical reasoning, we have a moral imperative to courageously leverage what we know nearly the past, in all its hurting, to have students engage in civic reasoning and discourse in society to include their voices and imaginations to assist us heal.
—Mark Gomez
High School History & Social Scientific discipline Curriculum Specialist, Salinas, California
The merits that telling the truth nearly the United States past — as one that is soaked in colonialism and enslavement, AND commonage struggle and abolition — is something ideologically radical is profoundly disturbing.
This nation volition not exist part of constructing a more than just world if we fail to teach our students to call back and act in critical and transformative ways in our classrooms and in our communities.
Let'south Keep Tellin' Truth.
—Edwin Mayorga
Educational Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies Associate Professor, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
We must continue to work to dismantle white supremacy in our nation. Teaching and learning the truth about its past is one tool toward that end.
—Evan O'Connell
High School Government and U.S. History Teacher, Queens, New York
My students, despite facing racism and threats their entire lives, talk eloquently well-nigh their belief in the U.s.a.. They do this not in spite of my education them the awful and heartbreaking truths of our past, but considering of information technology. Simply these state legislatures announced to believe that racism and hate are so intrinsic to the U.South. that you lot cannot be a true American if you reject them. These legislators are telling on themselves.
—Danina Garcia
High School Literacy and Humanities Instructor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I refuse to lie to my students. I refuse to White-wash history. I pass up to "brand America bully again" by ignoring the deeper truths and darker parts of our history. I turn down to ignore the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history and in current events. The simply way to move forrad is to educate.
—Nate Merrill
Centre School Social Studies Teacher, Dorset, Vermont
Education history is about making connections and helping students explore how we became who we are today. There is no room for lies.
Presenting truthful information to students, forth with the tools to debate, evaluate evidence, empathize nuance, and listen to others' point of view is critical for democracy.
—Patricia Roach
Teacher, Flagstaff, Arizona
History is so of import, simply even more important is the ability to decipher the truth from nostalgia.
My students, by and large young men and women of color, need to know the true story of this country and then they can detect a way to alive in information technology.
The side that is trying to eliminate the proper and true telling of history is simply interested in maintaining ability. Truth to power is real and I'll fight for that and keep educational activity my students (and my own children and anybody else that volition listen) real history as I go along to learn information technology myself.
—Michael Stewart
High School U.S. and World History Teacher, Flint, Michigan
I feel that my country lied to me when teachers did not disclose the true nature of our history. The history books I had every bit a student reflected merely progress and power, without describing how my country became a power through slavery and other colonial acts.
The men we regard as heroes in our history books are often the ones who brought about the near destruction and hurting to others. We owe our children the truth.
—Victoria Hand
Higher Instruction Professor, Boulder, Colorado
As a teacher, I want to be part of the healing that needs to happen in this country. However, that is non possible unless we honestly examine the nation's history and collaboratively commit to repairing the trauma of colonialism.
—Christopher Green
Middle School U.S. History Teacher, San Antonio, Texas
I teach math and numbers don't lie. The playing field is not level and the systems accept not treated all people as. Pretending it is so volition not brand information technology and then.
—Sharon Kramer
Eye School Math Teacher, New York City, New York
Students need to know historical truths, no matter how uncomfortable or ugly they are. Whatsoever attempts by state and national politicians to restrict, silence, or whitewash historical truths must be fought against and resisted — such as attacks on teaching the realities of Indigenous land theft and anti-Blackness politics that are deeply tangled upwardly with the founding of the U.Due south.
Until nosotros finally come up to terms with the total extent of this history, the deeper social changes we demand will remain out of accomplish. As an educator, I'm committed to doing my part to ensure students larn these hard historical truths.
—Chris Crews
University International Studies Professor, Granville, Ohio
I turn down to teach the narrative that has been created to make information technology seem like there is merely one group that matters and that has made long-lasting contributions to our nation.
Working in a very diverse district, I want my students to know that they matter and they are a role of their country's history, too.
—KayLee Fredricks
Loftier School U.S. History and Civics Instructor, Wyoming, Michigan
I volition not be complicit in the effort to encompass up the real history of this nation and the deleterious effects of that history on the peoples information technology oppresses.
As a instructor information technology is my duty to teach my students to think reflectively, critically, and creatively nigh all things. This is specially critical when information technology comes to the history and nowadays state of the United states of america. I would be failing them if I did not teach them to ask questions, dig deeper, and uncover the things that nosotros are non so proud of.
A citizenry that cannot come across the defects of its nation is helpless in making information technology a amend place for all. We must movement forward to build a more perfect union even if it is uncomfortable, embarrassing, and challenging. As with all of life, alter can be painful, just it is necessary for progress.
Teachers are meant to teach, and there is no knowledge without honesty, then I will teach with honesty and hope for a improve future for my students and my state.
—Sarah Vandre
Elementary School Teacher, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
I never learned about Japanese American internment camps in high schoolhouse fifty-fifty though I live 2 hours from Minidoka.
Japanese internment camps are finally in our standards and my students learned well-nigh information technology this year. They appreciate not existence lied to, and like me, they know when they take been deceived. We volition not go back. I will non prevarication to my students. I will continue to teach the truth.
—Mackenzie Smith
High Schoolhouse U.Due south. History Teacher, Meridian, Idaho
I know how conservative media describes the work we are doing as something negative and something to be feared, causing confusion to the public, including teachers as to what should and should not exist taught in the classroom. Notwithstanding, education is not about telling students what to think, information technology's helping them develop the skills on how to think critically virtually the earth around them, enhancing their curiosity.
The only way to help students sympathise the present world is to gain a more accurate understanding of our past. We should ask what stories are missing and why. Who had a vox and who did not? Who did the voices from the by benefit? Who was harmed? The starting time footstep in the problem solving process is to define the problem. If you cannot accurately define the problem, then the solutions proposed will non work.
—Heather Smith
Technology Instructor and Equity Liaison, Youngstown, Ohio
Didactics the truth about our land'south history is beyond important and it boggles my heed that we are even debating this. I will always teach my students the truth about our country because everyone has a right to know!
—Lindsey Nordeen
Loftier School Civics and World Geography Teacher, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
As a child, I was taught a version of history that was void of my people, the injustices we've endured, our struggles, and our triumphs.
I turn down to continue this cycle of oppressive education that damages our students' potential, especially our marginalized students.
—Albert Albanes
Middle School Proyecto Saber Teacher, Seattle, Washington
This laughable attempt to censor cognition cannot stand. I refuse to sit down idly by while the earth of alternative facts tries to alter reality.
Seeing my students parrot the pledge of allegiance out of a compulsory sense of community, hearing the words "and justice and freedom *for all*" band and then, and then hollow . . . to come across people putting blinders on with such determination is very problematic, not to mention childish. I encourage all of my beau educators to read Charles Bukowski's letter on censorship.
—Ryan Berry
High Schoolhouse Literature Teacher, Atlanta, Georgia
Our children must know the by in lodge to impact our future.
—Kassi Hall
Literacy and Humanities District Administrator, Indianapolis, Indiana
This is long overdue and needs to happen. The amount of my students who tell me "Why DIDN'T I learn this in school?" "Why did I have to larn this in college?" is unending.
—Lauren Hill
Academy Professor, Woodbridge, New Bailiwick of jersey
Healing the rifts in society requires empathy, which in turn requires an accurate history of how those rifts came to be. We must face up our past in order to create a better future.
—LaDawn Haglund
Academy Folklore Professor, Tempe, Arizona
I have a responsibility to my students to teach them near the long-standing forces of oppression that continue to shape our land and world today, as well as the ways groups have worked to face up head-on and dismantle these forces.
—Lauren Moss
Middle School Social Studies Teacher, Rockaway Park, New York
We cannot provide real and lasting change in our state and communities, if the history behind current systemic problems is not confronted. We take a responsibleness to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
—Brittany Huyler
History Instructor, Sunland, California
History is too important to let reactionary politicians command. Our students and nation deserve better.
—Michael Ybarra
High School U.S. History Teacher, Katy, Texas
I've always taught the truth regardless of the law or the state curriculum. That'south why I got into teaching history.
—Sulaiman Robinson
Centre School U.Due south. History Teacher, Bowie, Maryland
It is a sin to lie. When the government creates laws to oppress thought and actions in it oppressive and abusive. I will not sin, be oppressed, or driveling. I volition not be a part of a fraud.
—Mary Mays-Ridgell
Middle School Library Media Specialist Specialist, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Silencing the perspectives and experiences of Black people and people of color, to maintain the status quo, is what white supremacy and the propagation of racist systems looks like.
—Jodi Oliver
High Schoolhouse Spanish Teacher, Sioux Falls, Due south Dakota
Every bit Kendi says, denial is the heartbeat of racism. It is only through an honest and true reckoning with our history that we can cull an anti racist time to come.
—Lindsay King
Middle School Social Studies Teacher, Corbett, Oregon
Children deserve to know our history and how to prevent it from happening again. Noesis is power.
—Katharine Schell
Elementary School Teacher, Nampa, Idaho
I will ensure my students are prepared to be highly effective educators, meaning they are well versed in authentic understandings of history and will utilise quality pedagogical practices to ensure all identities are welcomed and accustomed and taught within their classrooms.
—Lauren Hermann
Instructor Educator, Columbia, Missouri
I will teach the truth and make my vocalism heard.
—Tanysha Nunnally
High Schoolhouse Teacher, Atlanta, Georgia
Equally an educator of ethnic studies, information technology is so essential that I teach my students the true history of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in the U.s. and around the world. I volition not stand down as legislators attempt to hide the truth from our students
—Stephanie Melendez
Loftier School Social Studies Instructor, W Palm Beach, Florida
We must tell the truth or we are a part of the crime. If the United States is to be a truly Great America, her sins and the people who are guilty must be known. And repairing the brokenness starts with beingness true, and answerable. Truth has come to you.
—Maurice Muhammad
High School History Teacher, Coldwater , Mississippi
Students without the truth of their history are misguided and have no sense of pride.
I have tutored students and discovered that they didn't know nigh important events in history — The Trail of Tears/Indian Removal, Black Wall Street, Residential Schools, Reconstruction, etc. This tin't proceed.
—Lydia Rose
Middle and Simple School Reading Specialist, Chattanooga, Tennessee
History should exist taught through the full scope of its facts. Albeit unflattering to some indigenous groups, the complete and honest stories of the American past should be taught so lodge and our growing youth have a clear and honest agreement of U.South. history.
—Joanna Hirsch
Elementary School ESE Teacher, Clearwater, Florida
I am concerned that my land's contempo legislation volition stifle my power to teach students about how they fit into our histories and why they fit where they fit in guild today.
Being white is not mutually exclusive to the goals of contextually teaching the reality of diverse American histories and the roles of various groups inside that history. Young people understand this, and it is our task to be both thoughtful and critical when we have discussions about race, gender, class and other methods of social classification.
Having the state of Florida legislate teaching by eradicating the voices of minorities is scary, and while it might just be happening in the social sciences today, the path is now open for this kind of regulation to happen in all disciplines.
—Debra Marshall
Higher Folklore Professor, Melbourne, Florida
Rather than placating adults who are scared of systems and change, we should be educational activity our students how to dismantle the systems and look at the world from a different lens. We should learn from the past then that we do not repeat information technology!
—Aubrey Noonan
3rd Grade Teacher, Iowa City, Iowa
Liberty and justice for all require truth, restoration, reparation, and then reconciliation. Educational activity complete, if contested, histories of social systems and civic governance is an indispensable predicate to shared and lasting peace in Love Community.
—Phyllis D.K. Hildreth
Conflict Management and Civic Engagement Higher/Customs Educator, Nashville, Tennessee
Political positioning and regime overreach should never exist allowed to dictate the instruction of a trained educator.
—Shara Troutner
High Schoolhouse English Teacher, Cleveland, Tennessee
I pledge to teach the truth, regardless of what was passed in June 2021 by the Florida Board of Education and signed into law past Governor DeSantis. My students deserve nothing less.
—Rebecca Russell
Middle and High School Social Studies Teacher, New Port Richey, Florida
My students are capable of learning and thinking critically about a diverse range of subjects.
I will not lower my expectations of them or the quality of my teaching in gild to appease the fickle winds of political favor.
—Kevin Smith
10th Course ELA and IB Theory of Knowledge Teacher, Jacksonville, Florida
Our nation'southward truthful story must be told. We cannot hide from the truth. Nosotros tin only heal and move forward when ALL voices have been heard and stories shared.
—Amy Spies
Centre Schoolhouse Mathematics Teacher, Port Orangish, Florida
Nosotros must create the opportunity and structure for our students to become disquisitional thinkers. We absolutely have to provide them with a variety of viewpoints and experiences from our storied past. Simply with this added perspective do we truly have a run a risk to continue to build to a more perfect and inclusive platonic.
How can we truly solve a problem without looking at all the factors in a critical way? We demand to build a shared lexicon that allows for thoughtful and nuanced discussions on how to mitigate our by and the all-time way to build our future.
—Jason Motta
Eye School U.S. History Instructor, Jupiter, Florida
I refuse to prevarication to my students well-nigh U.Due south. History.
Iowa has passed a law banning the truth and I can't represent it.
—Dominique Akpore
Center School Social Studies Teacher, Fort Madison, Iowa
It is unethical to withhold truths from our students and for an entity of government to await educators to change our history.
Information technology is our duty as educators to provide facts and allow students to develop their ain opinions and beliefs.
—Dana Bockman
Administrator, Decorah, Iowa
The idea that teachers should be limited in what they teach based on an incorrect perception of 'critical race theory' is unacceptable. It is a thinly-veiled attempt to avoid huge swaths of U.S. history and its role in persistent racist behaviors, as a culture and as individuals.
—Julia Leonard
Higher Art Teacher, Davenport, Iowa
Hiding the truth from children will not make them responsible, critical-thinking adults. Teaching a multifariousness of perspectives is necessary for students to have in the entire picture of events and make decisions based on all the data bachelor with consideration for all stakeholders involved.
Give students the truth and teach them to think critically about their history and the earth.
—Elizabeth Waldrop
tenth Grade English Instructor, Pflugerville, Texas
I believe in bookish freedom. The truth of our commonage history is fundamental to upholding the democratic traditions of our country.
—Tim Martindell
Eye School Instructor, Houston, Texas
I believe our children have a correct to know the truth, no matter how painful or messed upward it was. We can't teach them and then immature not to prevarication and then turn effectually and do the very opposite.
If those who are trying to omit the truth believe information technology was right, so why not embrace information technology? Allow generations later on united states of america to know what happened. It tin bring about positive change in this country and also the world.
—Lisa Young
Substitute Teacher and Parent Educator, Harker Heights, Texas
I refuse to allow history to repeat itself through ignorance and assuasive detest to fester.
—Rachel Barker
Elementary Schoolhouse Teacher, Dallas, Texas
I was taught a experience-expert version of U.Southward. history in school and I remember the stupor of learning about things like Japanese American Internment when I got to college; I was taught a Eurocentric version of Earth History that did not address cultures outside of Europe, peculiarly Africa.
Equally a historian, my job is to look at the documents and translate those documents based on corroboration of evidence across sources from multiple perspectives to arrive at an interpretation. Existent history is messy and makes us uncomfortable at times. But it is through those experiences that we learn and grow in our agreement of the world every bit a complicated place. Students should larn the critical thinking skills that will allow them to be functioning members of guild.
Subsequently teaching about race, class, and gender in U.S. history, I watched my students grow aroused that they were in the last years of the public pedagogy and no one had ever mentioned these topics.
Research has shown that students who do not see their history in school practice not do besides every bit their peers.
—Whitney Blankenship
High School History Teacher, Austin, Texas
It is IMPOSSIBLE to teach a song like "Follow the Drinking Gourd" without explaining why information technology's a code vocal or why it needed to be in code.
The smart students will Non accept "have your parents ask your legislators" as an educated reply.
—Ballad July
Elementary School Music Teacher, Fort Worth, Texas
Kids deserve to know the truth. There is but no manner to empathize history of you don't know the whole story.
—Duncan McGinnis
High School World History and U.S. Government Teacher, Richards, Texas
Talking about race in my classes is of import in order to aid my students think critically about the society in which they live. They have to understand information technology, so when they graduate they aren't shocked to find out that school sugar-coated the truth.
—Chyanne Smith
High School English language Instructor, El Paso, Texas
I pledge to teach our state and national history with truth and accuracy.
—Christopher Bradley
Teacher, McAlester, Oklahoma
Teachers should always be committed to pedagogy the truth, even if that truth makes the states uncomfortable and forces us to confront our nation's imperfect past.
—Michael Eckert
eighth Grade English Teacher, Prairie Grove, Arkansas
Adopting laws that actively promote denial and ignorance is a strategy that will not move society forwards. My all-time approximate is that very few teachers will actually conform to these new mandates. Many of united states of america will respond by increasing course time spent on critical race theory, structural sexism, and LGBT oppression.
—David Carrier
University Professor, Salt Lake City, Utah
I want my son, and my students to larn to think critically about the world. Whitewashing history volition non prepare them for adulthood and their lives exterior of school, and outside of their parents.
—Katie Wilkinson
9th Class English Teacher, Sandy, Utah
This proposed legislation is based on fear and information technology promotes deception for the sake of increasing political ability.
—Phillip Edmonds
fourth Grade Teacher, Madison, Wisconsin
We will non truly heal every bit a nation and make progress on understanding each other until we discontinue the sugar-coated history in our classrooms, use an equitable lens to teach our youth well-nigh oppression also as the resilience of peoples, and honestly reflect on our past and how these events affect current events.
—Steve Somerson
Loftier Schoolhouse Mathematics Teacher, Madison, Wisconsin
History must be based in comprehensive fact, not just the carmine-picking of easy truths.
—Melissa H Krause
Preschool Teacher, Saint Louis, Missouri
It is critical, to the future of all people in the United States, to teach the unvarnished truth nearly our by.
—John Maloy
High Schoolhouse Social Studies Instructor, Owasso, Oklahoma
If we continue to pretend racism does not exists, then hate and violence will go along in our lodge. If we don't talk near the by we cannot alter the futurity. One party is decision-making the instruction system and the rhetoric and it volition damage the public education for students learning history and the truth. We should not be suppressing history even if information technology'southward painful.
—Michelle Elizondo
Preschool Special Education Teacher, Byron Center, Michigan
My students deserve the truth — e'er, not merely when it's convenient for politicians.
—Rose Bruce
High School U.S. History and Authorities Teacher, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I am a teacher, only specifically I am a instructor to incredible immigrants to our land. All of my students' first language is Castilian and/or Ethnic. They deserve to know our history, especially as it pertains to their rights and their peers' rights. Nosotros cannot mask the truth. We must face it head on and discuss information technology as individuals and a community.
—Alethea Maldonado
Heart School ESL Teacher, San Marcos, Texas
"The truth will set us free."
At that place must be truth telling in order for there to be justice, peace, and reconciliation.
—Cecilia Campbell
Middle School Teacher, Dania, Florida
Read More than Pledges and Add Your Proper noun
Source: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/teachers-defy-gop-bans-on-history-lessons/