Seems like this new AP African American studies course has been little noticed, though it is said to be in the pilot stage in 60 schools this fall.
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Interesting.
I’d actually rather my kids take a class like that while actually in college. Black Studies/African-American Studies classes can have a lot of interesting variety to them at different college campuses. The History of Jazz class I took in college was fascinating.
On why AP European history courses have been offered for years with no African American history counterpart, Williams-Clark said, “What we have to understand is that history is told from the perspective of the winner.”
Though it’s nice to see new history courses joining European history, I wonder why they went with African-American Studies instead of African History. Perceived lack of interest and/or relevance? African history has long been neglected even in academia, so fostering an early interest would be quite beneficial, I think. (AP Asian History would be a fascinating class as well, especially since they are dragging their feet on rolling out the pre-modern world history class.)
Admittedly, I’ve never fully understood the choices they make. Why human geography but not anthropology or sociology? Why environmental science but not geology/earth science? Who knows.
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I do think African American History is very timely and addresses a specific problem we are currently having as a nation, but I agree that some past decisions have been weird and expose unconscious bias. For example if it was things like gunpowder that catalyzed the modern era in Europe, then it’s kind of ironic to call ancient Asia “pre-modern world history” since the advanced came from there. Modern is relative…
Somebody mentioned previously about African history. I like how the curriculum for world history in HS has now included a lot more African history.
Along with AP Pre-Calculus.
College Board seems to be reaching beyond the scope of mimicking standard first year college courses in an effort to grow revenue.
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New thread: AP precalculus
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It was certainly unnoticed by me. Thanks for the news. It looks like an interesting course. I’ll have to check to see if it’s at D26’s school, and if not, strongly recommend they add it for next year.
This has particular interest to me because my father initiated the first African-American History program at his HBCU in the 60s. Though it was an HBCU, he had to fight hard to get the administration to allow that class to be added. Over the years, I’ve met many of his students from that era who said his class changed their lives and made them look at themselves in an entirely different way. From those conversations, I know the power such classes can have.
Great move by CB.
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I don’t think it’s “perceived” lack of interest. I think it’s actual lack of interest. The young people I know personally, if they show an interest in either it is Af-Am history by a pretty large margin. I think an Af-Am History class would draw more enrollees than an African History program.
That said, I agree with you that, in a perfect world, both classes should be offered. Of course, this would have to be school specific, because, in certain school districts, I imagine both classes would struggle to enroll enough students to be viable. And sometimes, one might be viable but the other unviable.
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