Educators rally to #TeachTruth as the GOP tries to silence lessons on U.S. oppression

On Saturday, educators all around the U.S. made it abundantly clear that legal maneuvers aren’t going to stop them from bringing truth to the students in their classrooms.

The nationwide protest was conceived as a response to ongoing efforts by Republican lawmakers to set rules on what is and isn’t OK in U.S. classrooms, particularly when it comes to lessons on U.S. history. Despite the very real and proven roles that racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression have played in the development of U.S. society, the GOP’s ongoing culture war calls for patriotism to supersede the importance of facts in schools.

Teachers aren’t having it. The pledge, authored and promoted by the Zinn Education Project, is incredibly blunt about what’s happening: “Lawmakers in at least 15 states are attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history.”

It then goes on to detail some of the legislative efforts unfolding in multiple states that are aimed at stopping educators from “teaching the truth about this country: It was founded on dispossession of Native Americans, slavery, structural racism and oppression; and structural racism is a defining characteristic of our society today.”

The pledge, which is aimed specifically at educators, hasn’t yet reached its target of 6,400 signatures at the time of this writing. But many of the signatures so far are accompanied by statements that in similarly blunt terms about the harmful impacts this legislation threatens to have an U.S. youth.

“Teaching does not mean indoctrinating,” one Missouri teacher wrote. “Forcing people to only teach one limited perspective is the real indoctrination. Fascist, racist educations restrictions are the sign of desperation.”

“I want my son, and my students to learn to think critically about the world around them,” a Utah educator wrote. “Whitewashing history and the world will not prepare them for lives outside of school, and outside of their parents.”

Along with the signed pledge, the Zinn  Education Project and Black Lives Matter at School teamed up to a day of action for June 12, calling on educators and those who support them to gather all around the country — both publicly in historically relevant locations and in virtual events — to help raise awareness for the pledge and, more importantly, the underlying reasons for its existence.

Many of the organizers for each event made their presence known on social media with the #TeachTruth hashtag.

h/t The Washington Post