AP Euro students: How is your teacher?

Test Preparation AP History & Social Sciences
1

Hello everyone,</p>

I’m taking AP Euro this year and I’m liking it very much so far, especially since I’m really into history and philosophy.</p>

But I have mixed feelings about my teacher’s teaching style. To make it clear, I’m gonna give you guys some brief points of what an average day in the class looks like.</p>

First, we do assigned reading(from a textbook), take some notes, and bring them to class. Nothing strange so far. But while in class, all we do is DISCUSS. Really, talking about the things we just read and their significance is ALL WE DO
.
In other words, the teacher never lectures; it feels like the students are teachers, teaching each other. We correct each other and use logic and evidence to criticize each other. The teacher interrupts once five minutes or so, but the discussion is pretty much info-packed and very engaging. (Not to mention, all of those students are brilliant ones- perhaps except for me.)</p>

So what do you guys think of my teacher’s method? his students so far have got 4s and 5s, so I wouldn’t think it’s ineffective. But it’s a bit strange to me… mainly because I’ve never had a class like that before. No taking notes, no listening to the teacher… </p>

And over time I’ve found that preparing to talk about things you just read is a lot different than just memorizing/getting ready for a quiz or a test.
Not to mention, much of grade is based on participation and oral quizzes. </p>

So AP Euro students, how is your class going so far? do you like your teacher?</p>

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<p>I don’t have AP Euro (I have AP World which is pretty similar besides time period and loc.), but that seems like a very nice teaching style, as long as the teacher is paying attention to what the class is saying. I personally think school should be more like that. My teacher? He’s pretty good too; we use the usual style of teaching but he’s really chill and can express almost everything in an analogy which really helps alot.</p>

3

<p>I’m in AP euro right now and I absolutely love my AP euro teacher! He’s just so energetic, you can tell he loves what he’s doing.
OP, his teaching style is like your teachers except we take more notes but he makes it very engaging and entertaining to the students.</p>

4

<p>@ogok2010 - PLEASE be thankful that your class at least does something in class. Sorry if that came off as yelling because I didn’t mean to, but I am so frustrated with my teacher. I had him last year for World History and he read some of the text with us. This year he doesn’t do anything. Let me give you a break down of our past week.</p>

<p>Monday - Nothing
Tuesday - Nothing
Wednesday - Nothing
Thursday - He discusses the test.
Friday - We take the test and are expected to turn in a six page graphic organizer on the chapter.</p>

<p>This class is basically self study and I am so positive that I failed the past three tests. Which he still hasn’t graded. So all in all, not a great start. But I am hoping that things will change because the same thing happened last year and he managed to turn it around.</p>

5

<p>You think you’ve had it bad JadeMusic? Last year I was in AP World History.</p>

<p>-The teacher was an 8th grade US History teacher that has never taught an AP course.
-The book had the smallest writing on the smallest pages
-The teacher never taught anything
-The teacher never discussed anything
-There was a quiz almost every Monday
-We weren’t even close to finishing the book at the end of the year
-There were 12 kids in the class
-You had to pay $87 to take the test</p>

<p>Yeah right. Only two people took the test, and they somehow got 2s. </p>

<p>Be lucky that he at least discusses the test and has assignments other than the quizzes. The only reason why I ended up getting an A was because most of the quiz questions were online.</p>

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<p>He’s silly, tons of fun, and very knowledgable in his subject, but he’s an awful teacher.</p>

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<p>Thank you so much KirbyLegs for putting things into perspective. You are right. Things can always be worse! If that sounded sarcastic, sorry. It wasn’t meant to be.</p>

8

<p>My AP Euro teacher was horrible back in the day, she liked the course, but did not go into very much depth with her lectures.</p>

9

<p>My Euro teacher’s a good teacher, but I’m not super fond of him. </p>

<p>He’s kind of sexist, lol. The first few sexist jokes were kind of “meh”, since I’m relatively desensitized to those things, but he’s told sexist jokes so many times that now it’s just like “wow… he really hates women.”</p>

<p>He also connects things that happened (in Eu. history) to current events [good – helps us connect ideas together, improves understanding], but he (1) digresses and spends half the class discussing modern-day politics like the government shutdown and the war in Syria and (2) imposes his political beliefs (which tend to be very right-winged) on his students.</p>

10

<p>Well, thanks all for replying. Unfortunately I quit the class(schedule conflicts, etc.), but all your insights are very helpful.</p>

<p>Zeppelin7/ I’m glad you have a teacher like the one I had. I agree that especially in history, a good teacher knows how to make the subject interesting. Depending on the instructor, history can be a boring, tedious subject associated with mountains of trivial details, or a perpetual streams of fascinating discourses worth wrestling with. For me it’s the latter, and I would like it to remain that way. </p>

<p>FrenchieXX/ I always love it when a teacher is energetic. Unfortunately, most of my teachers aren’t… which depresses me sometimes. Making a class engaging and entertaining is great as long as it doesn’t become too shallow or too fun, if you know what I mean.</p>

<p>JadeMusic/ I think I know how you feel. It’s frustrating always, as a student, when a teacher seems to go tangent, astray, or deviant from our expectations. Well, that happens and it sucks. I hope you keep it up! Last year I had a terrible, moralizing teacher and I wanted absolutely nothing with the class. But I survived and it made me stronger, I think.</p>

11

<p>My teacher was great, all he did was lecture and he was really cool.</p>

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<p>lemonchangjo// I’m no fan of sexism either, but I wouldn’t mind too much about it unless he makes it blatantly obvious that he thinks one sex superior or anything like that. But I guess that’s the life of a student, to put up with whoever is there to instruct us for a whole year. (sometimes more :)) </p>

<p>His ability to connect past events to current ones is fabulous.(Just like my American history teacher.) For me, though, talking about current events in class is like having a two-edged sword. Like you said, a) it deepens understanding of history and b) builds analytical thinking skills, but still, you won’t get 5s on the AP test from knowing what the current government shutdown has to do with the 18th century British mercantilist policies imposed on the Americans. (A comparison, by the way, made by my history teacher.)</p>

<p>Lastly, let’s talk about the moral and practical implications of having a biased teacher. I understand where you’re coming from and think I have an idea of how to get more from a teacher like him. About this, I have yet to find better words than those by Professor Gregory Mankiew, an author of a staggering textbook in economics, who also said to students that “Your understanding of certain material is incomplete and easily influenced by your instructor. However, you should consider yourself lucky for having a biased instructor because it will make you familiar with the process of identifying certain sides of an issue and later help you make your own judgements.” So I read in his blog.</p>

<p>The bottom line is: you really should think you’re lucky. I have a teacher who tries to be fair, not revealing any of his beliefs or biases. But I often feel frustrated because as a human being I would like to know what he thinks about this and that. </p>

<p>I feel like as students, the best we can do is to become humble and accept ideas from all sides, for now. Later, when we achieve a more complete understanding and better eloquence of the subject, we will be able to make our own judgements based on plenty of information and ideas that have been collected, sorted out, and synthesized up to that point.</p>

<p>That’s why, even though I’m more towards the left side of the politics, I recognize my limits and try not to step out of the boundary, just as your sexist teacher can be funny as long as he doesn’t go too far in his vulgar jokes. As Alexander Pope recants in his Essay On Criticism, human pretension and intellectual arrogance should be denounced because everybody is biased somewhat, and knowing one’s limits is crucial in making best of what we know and what we have. </p>

<p>So my advice: embrace your teacher, embrace his ideas, and if you still disagree, then keep listening, but come up with WHY you don’t agree with. That’s the kind of background and atmosphere in which critical learning can really happen, as opposed to being lectured by someone who is rather enigmatic in his or her beliefs.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>