The pledge was signed by no teachers on Feb. 12, the day before. It now has 75 pledges from Minneapolis teachers.
They’re one of the thousands of US teachers pledging to continue educating students about the controversial Critical Race Theory, which explains racism is embedded in US culture and politics.
Comments from Minneapolis teachers included, "I work primarily with Indigenous students and see daily the impact of intergenerational trauma. To deny their history would make me complicit in the attempted erasure of the effects of colonization" and "These efforts to "whitewash US History" are part of a larger effort by Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, to glorify a more White and patriarchal view of American history that downplays the ugly legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black people, Native Americans, women and others present during the nation’s founding. “Do we want historical facts and details that are researched and published by experts taught? Or do we want nationalism taught?” said T. Jameson Brewer, an educator and assistant professor at the University of North Georgia. “That’s a very scary sort of suggestion, that schools would engage in ideological nationalism for political needs.”You cannot heal divisions in this country by pretending they don’t exist. The way to address divisions is to understand the history of those divisions.It's impossible to make this country into something that it never really was. This is no more than a backlash to the success of a black president and of the 1619 project's potential success of being able to get ordinary Americans to hold themselves to higher standards. These bills aimed at controlling education are connected to the Capitol riot on January 6 and a fear of a changing country. There are both historical and societal conditions that give rise to this fear, and one way to deal with fear is to pass legislation that restricts it, because that way you feel like you can control what people learn, and then you can preserve the "status quo" of racial inequity and white supremacy in this country. Learning the truth about something rarely taught in traditional history classes will provide the perspective Americans need to strive toward the ideals upon which the country claims to be founded... and just as importantly, it will help Americans better understand why millions are marching and protesting today for social justice. Every time a particular group wants to maintain control, they restrict education. But education that incorporates teaching and learning practices that reflect the diversity, identities, histories, contributions, and experiences of all students creates inclusive, supportive, and identity-safe learning environments.Effective civics education is vital to protecting the Nation's democracy—especially at a time when its core institutions and values are threatened by misinformation. As The Power of Active Citizenship notes: “Teaching civics should be more than just understanding the structures and functions of government . . . [It] is crucial that students learn how to gather and evaluate sources of information, and then use evidence from that information to develop and support their ideas and advocacy positions. No polity can make wise decisions if its citizens do not know how to separate fact from opinion, and how to gather and weigh relevant evidence.” “It might be true that old man segregation is on his deathbed but history has proven that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power,” King observes. “The vanguards and the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their obstacles in an attempt to keep the old order alive.”It is in the spirit of King’s observation that the New York Times launched the 1619 Project, a journalistically ambitious attempt to illuminate the “great last-minute breathing power” of America’s racial caste system.But there’s a deeper point here: a particular vision of patriotism that centers on the ideal of white innocence.For conservatives, being a patriot means believing that America is an essentially good country; its sins are aberrations rather than central to its history. There is no room for a nuanced patriotism that sees a nation with racism as a central part of its DNA, but also a nation that can be improved through constant struggle and work. It is the “America: Love It or Leave It” bumper sticker, expressed in more florid prose.The conservative backlash to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, an anti-police brutality gesture developed in part by a veteran to be a twinned sign of patriotism and protest, is another example. So too was the conservative freakout when Michelle Obama noted that the White House was built by enslaved people — and the way her husband was constantly derided as being racially divisive because he dared to acknowledge its enduring relevance.In the conservative view, the United States has largely been redeemed from slavery through the Civil War, from segregation by the civil rights movement. Erickson describes this in explicitly Christian terms, substituting America for the martyred Jesus:It is also objectively true that slavery was this nation’s original sin. But it is also true that hundreds of thousands of people spilled their blood on the Union Army side as propitiation for that sin.The idea that America is somehow past its “original sin” would be news to black people, who live in a society that’s deeply stratified on racial lines. The median wealth possessed by white families is roughly 10 times that of black families — a gap that’s widening not shrinking. White Americans’ life expectancy is four years longer than that of black Americans. School segregation, a scourge that seemed on the verge of defeat in King’s time, has come roaring back.But this idea of a redeemed America allows conservatives to downplay the continued operation of racism today — to dismiss these persistent racial inequalities as the result of alleged black cultural pathologies, to argue that the extremely well-documented idea of structural racism is a myth. It is the idea of continued white innocence, of an essentially good America, that allows mainstream conservatives to accuse Democrats who talk about racism and black journalists who write about it as being race-baiters who work to divide America. It allows “Love It or Leave It” patriotism to survive untroubled by the awkwardnesses of reality".
Though the concept was first suggested in the late 70’s, it has recently exploded as a contentious issue between the American right and left in the last two years.
Many who signed the pledge are defying state bans on the teachings. Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have passed legislation banning discussions about the US being inherently racist.
Other states, such as Montana and South Dakota, have denounced the teachings without passing specific legislation.
In an interview with The Washington Free Beacon', Ashley Varner of the Freedom Foundation accused the Zinn Education Project of providing “left-leaning propaganda to teachers.”
| Teachers | Thoughts on Critical Race Theory |
|---|---|
| Abigail Rombalski | No comment |
| Amanda Lodermeier | No comment |
| Amber Rice | No comment |
| Andrea Saenz | We need the energy of our youth to be literate AND be able to dive into the criticality it takes to move this nation forward. Lying to our students only exacerbates the ignorance that got us here in the first place. We must learn about history through ALL lenses, not just the lens that ended up with the most power. |
| Andrew Ward | This should not be political and history is meant to be learned from not changed |
| Anneliese Paulson | No comment |
| Audrey Cullen | Well, telling lies about history is feeding into the collective denial of the history of this country. Not into perpetuating sickness, time to move forward and do the work to heal this land, all of us. |
| Blair Okey | I believe in telling the whole truth. |
| Britt Johnson | No comment |
| Bruce Campbell | Erasure of U.S. history is unconscionable. |
| Candace Burckhardt | Our students deserve to know the truth about our history and to see themselves represented in it. |
| Caroline Hooper | Students deserve the truth. |
| Claire Watne | No comment |
| Connie Ecklund | All students need to know all of our countries history |
| Courtney Antone | We see this preposterous attack on our educational efforts for what it is - a forceful attempt to erase our voices, tamper our efforts towards justice, and silence the voices of those that have resisted racist, bigoted, oppressive systems and efforts (such as this very one!) throughout the history of this land. Our search for justice, liberation, and new futures is so powerful that these lawmakers and their followers are intimidated enough to try and push us into the ground. But as the poet Dinos Christianopolous penned, and as Mexican activists cried out in the 90s, and as we remember today... we are seeds... If they keep pushing us, we will use the soil to nurture these truths so that they continue to grow. |
| Daniel Husman | No comment |
| David Boehnke | I will do this! |
| Denise Felder | To be the great country that we claim to be, we need to be honest about our history and acknowledge and celebrate everyone who contributes to our society. |
| Dua Yang | Truth emancipates, empowers, strengthens, and drives us to transform education. |
| Dylan Perry | No comment |
| Elizabeth Ihde | It is negligent to omit the hard parts of history when we teach it to students. We have a duty to teach them with integrity so that they are not doomed to repeat the injustices of the past. |
| Elizabeth Moklestad | the truth of history is necessary to understanding our present and creating a better future. |
| Emily Schmeling-Fremder | I will not whitewash history in my classroom. We have the responsibility to teach students, even in elementary, the truth of racism in this country. The recent banning of books in many states is a grim reminder that there are large populations trying to hide the true history from students, and trying to take away important representation of cultures. |
| Erin Hester | No comment |
| Frances Gibson | My students deserve to hear the truth about history because their ancestors lived it and this is how we repair and progress as a country and community. |
| Fred Quiggle | Fight Truth Decay: No More Lies or Democracy Dies!!! |
| Jamie Bacigalupo | We need to be honest about our country’s history in order to create a more equitable present and future. |
| Jen Alton | No comment |
| Jenny Mealey | No comment |
| Jessica Crawford | I value the truth and shedding light on the wrongs around us so that we may all live in a more just society. |
| Jill Loesch | No comment |
| Kalyn Thomas | No comment |
| Kate Harris | Our students need to hear the truth, no matter how painful and difficult it is. I want positive change in the U.S. and the first steps are through education. |
| Kathy Cook | No comment |
| Kathy Seipp | I have always worked on trying to teach human rights and letting students discuss issues in their lives and in the world...... |
| Kelly Shomper | This is important and right. |
| Kennedy Kehr | No comment |
| Kristen Pehl | We have to admit to hard history before we can fulfill the promise of our nation. |
| Kristina Kvarnlov-Leverty | Teaching the truth is how we nurture healthier, happier, more empathetic, and more resilient children and with that a healthier, more inclusive society. |
| Lauren Wilvers | Only when we can understand the past, are we able to make educated choices for the present. |
| Leah Hood | I will not be intimidated or censored by fascists. Students need and deserve the truth. |
| Lisa Cargill-Romsaas | We need to truth to be shared with our children not just the white washed version. How can we ever expect to make changes and build understanding when we are never taught the truth of our American history. It's time to create empathy and understanding and it starts with children. |
| Lisa Herr | I am committed to ABAR in my classroom. I must be a co conspirator in breaking down the systems of white supremacy in education. |
| Lisa Parra Staves | Each and every student deserves to know the truth of our collective histories, from multiple perspectives. |
| Maija Whitegon | No comment |
| Marie Voreis | No comment |
| Mary Cullen | No comment |
| Mary Cullen | I work primarily with Indigenous students and see daily the impact of intergenerational trauma. To deny their history would make me complicit in the attempted erasure of the effects of colonization. |
| Mary Cullen | The truth is our only way out of this. These students are the generation Crazy Horse prophesied about, we must guide them: “The red nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world: a world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations; a world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind with gather under the sacred tree of life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.”– Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse), Oglala Lakota Leader (1840-1877 |
| Michelle Anderson | No comment |
| Michelle Gross | Our students deserve to learn the truth about our history and how it has contributed to our current condition. Our history is our context. |
| Michelle Hofeldt | No comment |
| Michelle Kelly | These efforts to "whitewash US History" are part of a larger effort by Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, to glorify a more White and patriarchal view of American history that downplays the ugly legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black people, Native Americans, women and others present during the nation’s founding. “Do we want historical facts and details that are researched and published by experts taught? Or do we want nationalism taught?” said T. Jameson Brewer, an educator and assistant professor at the University of North Georgia. “That’s a very scary sort of suggestion, that schools would engage in ideological nationalism for political needs.”You cannot heal divisions in this country by pretending they don’t exist. The way to address divisions is to understand the history of those divisions.It's impossible to make this country into something that it never really was. This is no more than a backlash to the success of a black president and of the 1619 project's potential success of being able to get ordinary Americans to hold themselves to higher standards. These bills aimed at controlling education are connected to the Capitol riot on January 6 and a fear of a changing country. There are both historical and societal conditions that give rise to this fear, and one way to deal with fear is to pass legislation that restricts it, because that way you feel like you can control what people learn, and then you can preserve the "status quo" of racial inequity and white supremacy in this country. Learning the truth about something rarely taught in traditional history classes will provide the perspective Americans need to strive toward the ideals upon which the country claims to be founded... and just as importantly, it will help Americans better understand why millions are marching and protesting today for social justice. Every time a particular group wants to maintain control, they restrict education. But education that incorporates teaching and learning practices that reflect the diversity, identities, histories, contributions, and experiences of all students creates inclusive, supportive, and identity-safe learning environments.Effective civics education is vital to protecting the Nation's democracy—especially at a time when its core institutions and values are threatened by misinformation. As The Power of Active Citizenship notes: “Teaching civics should be more than just understanding the structures and functions of government . . . [It] is crucial that students learn how to gather and evaluate sources of information, and then use evidence from that information to develop and support their ideas and advocacy positions. No polity can make wise decisions if its citizens do not know how to separate fact from opinion, and how to gather and weigh relevant evidence.” “It might be true that old man segregation is on his deathbed but history has proven that social systems have a great last-minute breathing power,” King observes. “The vanguards and the guardians of the status quo are always on hand with their obstacles in an attempt to keep the old order alive.”It is in the spirit of King’s observation that the New York Times launched the 1619 Project, a journalistically ambitious attempt to illuminate the “great last-minute breathing power” of America’s racial caste system.But there’s a deeper point here: a particular vision of patriotism that centers on the ideal of white innocence.For conservatives, being a patriot means believing that America is an essentially good country; its sins are aberrations rather than central to its history. There is no room for a nuanced patriotism that sees a nation with racism as a central part of its DNA, but also a nation that can be improved through constant struggle and work. It is the “America: Love It or Leave It” bumper sticker, expressed in more florid prose.The conservative backlash to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, an anti-police brutality gesture developed in part by a veteran to be a twinned sign of patriotism and protest, is another example. So too was the conservative freakout when Michelle Obama noted that the White House was built by enslaved people — and the way her husband was constantly derided as being racially divisive because he dared to acknowledge its enduring relevance.In the conservative view, the United States has largely been redeemed from slavery through the Civil War, from segregation by the civil rights movement. Erickson describes this in explicitly Christian terms, substituting America for the martyred Jesus:It is also objectively true that slavery was this nation’s original sin. But it is also true that hundreds of thousands of people spilled their blood on the Union Army side as propitiation for that sin.The idea that America is somehow past its “original sin” would be news to black people, who live in a society that’s deeply stratified on racial lines. The median wealth possessed by white families is roughly 10 times that of black families — a gap that’s widening not shrinking. White Americans’ life expectancy is four years longer than that of black Americans. School segregation, a scourge that seemed on the verge of defeat in King’s time, has come roaring back.But this idea of a redeemed America allows conservatives to downplay the continued operation of racism today — to dismiss these persistent racial inequalities as the result of alleged black cultural pathologies, to argue that the extremely well-documented idea of structural racism is a myth. It is the idea of continued white innocence, of an essentially good America, that allows mainstream conservatives to accuse Democrats who talk about racism and black journalists who write about it as being race-baiters who work to divide America. It allows “Love It or Leave It” patriotism to survive untroubled by the awkwardnesses of reality. |
| Michelle Kope | I refuse to perpetuate white supremacy. |
| Nathan Perez | I believe these actions to limit teachers' abilities to teach honest and accurate history will only continue historical/current inequities in society as well as raise generations of disconnected and disaffected citizens. |
| Niambi Jackson | No comment |
| Nina Asher | Veritas. |
| Paul Spies | As a white guy, I was denied knowing the truth about the past growing up and was disempowered from this lack of knowledge. Knowing the full truth about the past empowers not only BIPOC, but also whites and together we can work for racial justice and equity. |
| Peter McKown | We have come to where we are because of our refusal to face hard history. We need to practice and be brave with and for our students. We will not be free until we are all free. |
| Rachel Cafferty | No comment |
| Raina Williams | No comment |
| Richard Beach | No comment |
| Robert Lewis | Nothing can be changed until it is faced-James Baldwin |
| Roxanne Gould | As a Native child I was not told the truth about my people or culture in school. It wasn't until I went to college that I had access to curriculum that reflected my experience. As a teacher I vow to always teach my students truth about this nations peoples and history. |
| Ryan Bour | I believe teaching accurate history, however uncomfortable that history may be, is the best way to ensure a more equal and just future for everyone. |
| Samantha Ross | everyone needs to know the truth. We cannot ignore the foundations our country and others have been founded or driven towards building. We cannot continue to perpetuate the cycle of oppression and -ism's that systemically plague our society. Our students deserve to see change and learn about not only how things came to be but also how we can create this change. No erasing the truth! |
| Sara Nelson | Whitewashing history means our children and their children will make the same mistakes. We owe the truth to everyone but especially our BIPOC students who continue to be harmed by the lies. |
| Sara Peik | We need the truth to bring us into an understanding of each other and most importantly ourselves. |
| Sarah Davis | No comment |
| Sarah Hassebroek | I believe in teaching critical thinking skills and supporting future learners to have a safe learning environment. |
| Shannon Karkula | Truth is essential to learning. Without truth, there is no possibility for growth. And, without growth, there is no possibility for change. I refuse to engage in the wholesale whitewashing of our country's history; as an educator of young people, I pledge to tell the truth. |
| Suzanne Blum Grundyson | My students deserve to learn the truth and our communities deserve informed citizens. |
| Walter Johnson | teachers need to start telling true narratives and refusing to be bullied by special interest groups |
| Whitney Andre | No comment |
| Zina Toure | I understand the intersection of history and raising interest in young learners to follow path , break down previous unsustainable pattern, foster healthy curiosity and understanding of any perceived «other», see injustices as a matter of choices and begin to deem themselves as power wielding individuals. |
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