Lane is on the right track, AP African American History is a legitimate course for inclusion. I teach Black History at the college level, and have several colleagues at various institutions who also do so. One of the major complaints at this level is the students “don’t know any of their history.” How or why should they if they are not taught it? Another complaint about including Black history courses, AP or otherwise in high schools, is “it may make the survey courses untenable at the college level.” Translation: offering the course at the high school level may hurt my job.

It is not about our college course load or offering comfort level, but about best educating young people about their past, so they will better understand themselves and the world they inhabit. Personally, I welcome the student with the basic knowledge. That student can help set the pace in the college classroom, may have to relearn or unlearn some foundation material, and may contribute to the professor’s and other students’ knowledge of the material. Those are challenges and assists professors should welcome.

In short, I support Lane in wanting to offer the AP course in African American history, and hope others will follow her lead.

Prof of Black History, at 9:55 am EDT on August 7, 2007

choices

It bothers me that Native American History has not been discussed in this context, and that the two areas that the United States has some unsavory past (Native American and African American) are the two areas that are not offered as AP classes. One other option available to students is Post Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO), and these courses usually transfer more smoothly into state and private colleges.

Paula Sundet, at 10:00 am EDT on August 7, 2007

No More Exclusion...

I can truly appreciate the subject of this article. Our organization provides Black Studies at the high school level in Portland, Oregon. I also serve on a sub-committee for the Department of Education. Our charge as a sub-committee is to develop strategies for college preparedness and retention for students of color in our state. I am alarmed at the inferiority complex many of our students of african descent suffer from when it comes to academic achievement. Much of our work is aimed at empowering black students to think differently about their identity and culture. We have found that one of the ways to reaffirm our students is to create a culture of learning that represents their cutlure and race. As the students realize the rich heritage of their lineage they come to realize that they stand on the shoulders of giants. Until public education addresses white priviledge and the perceptions of low expectations placed upon our black youth we’ll never close an achievement gap and the reality of academic rigor will continue to be defined by a European experience. AP African-American History is a step in the right direction. What our black youth need more than anything is a rediscovery of critical thinking skills and a relevant learhing environment.

Mark Jackson, Program Director at REAP, Inc., at 2:50 pm EDT on August 7, 2007

Why are such highly specialized AP credits even necessary?

There are students entering college who cannot even construct a decent essay.

This is simply a distraction from a much larger, more important issue.

anon, at 5:10 pm EDT on August 7, 2007

While I applaud the desire to add an AP African American history course, I think we’re neglecting the obvious—which is that so-called regular courses are simply not rigorous enough and often do too little to prepare our young people for college.

anonymous, at 6:10 pm EDT on August 7, 2007

I must admit that I am a bit disheartened by the number of voices arguing against the establishment of an AP African American History course. I agree with the idea that the teaching of U.S. History should more accurately reflect the contributions of all persons (as well as explain the enduring negative repercussions of actions taken by groups against other groups). However, despite the apparent need for such reform, change has not occurred. U.S. history courses at all but the most advanced collegiate levels tend to gloss over the issue of race in America’s past. Some programs are certainly an exception. My own AP U.S. History course included relatively extensive coverage of Pre-Columbian American History, the social, economic, and cultural legacies of slavery and reconstruction, the development of the concept of Whiteness as the attempted erasure of previously politically salient differences between groups of European immigrants, and (sadly scant) treatment of Asian populations in America throughout the 20th Century. It was an intense course.

Clearly, then, it is possible to construct a high-school level course that does offer insight into our nation’s past beyond the Founding Fathers and acknowledges that our racial history is much more complex than one lesson on slavery, civil rights, and immigration can account for. But in most cases, I would venture to guess, U.S. history is not taught in its fullness.

One thing that I do recall from my elementary and secondary education is that, until I took AP U.S. History, I was taught the same material over and over, every year, in my history/social studies courses. From the fifth grade through the ninth grade, I didn’t learn anything new about America—though I did learn about other parts of the world. Perhaps we could more effectively engage the early years in a child’s education and build upon their understanding of U.S. histroy from year to year, preparing them for more specialized courses by the time they reach their junior and senior years of high school. But, as an aside, we do currently offer AP courses in statistics, art history, French literature, and the works of Vergil, so perhaps a little specialization in high school isn’t as crazy as some posters on this board make it out to be.

As a note to persons who have expressed the idea that every hyphenated American group would merit a specialized course should African American History be taught at the AP level, I wonder what a more thorough teaching of American history might do with your concern. It would be interesting to see a high-school course discuss why certain, once politically salient differences between, let’s say, German, Irish, and Italian Americans have dimished now that we have a blanket term (whiteness) that can subsume most groups descended from European immigrants. That is to say, I wonder at what point in the teaching of those courses would those histories start to sound the same. While I do not seek to deny or erase still-existing important cultural differences between groups, my point is that, at least on some level in this country, we recognize whiteness and various forms of non-whiteness. Differences between white groups are, for whatever reason, seen as less important (not only by me, but by a lot of people in this country)

I think an AP African American History course could do a lot of good for helping students to realize the complexity of our past as a nation. While writing this post, I even began to think about the idea of a German-American, or Swedish-American, or Korean-American course (probably because another poster suggested similar alternatives). What I find interesting is that, in such a comparsion, African American is left as an unproblematic monolith, while white and Asian subgroups are individually highlighted. It is as though we can already recognize the differences between the histories of German immigrants from those of Irish immigrants, or likewise for Chinese and Japanese groups in America, but we assume that history is the same for descendants of African slavery in the Northeast, free Blacks who remained in the south, Caribbean and Black Latin-American immigrants to the U.S., and African Americans who formed part of the western pioneer movement. I think we need an AP African American history course to serve as an prelude to specialized study. Such a course would, I think, require young students to question implicit assumptions they make about the world. This, in turn, would improve their critical thinking skills and make them all the more prepared for collegiate-level study.

And to the poster who bemoaned the idea of more specialization considering students’ poor writing skills, I even think that such a course could require students to write an essay or three.

CTYDEHT, Why not an AP African American History course?, at 7:45 pm EDT on August 8, 2007

AP addition of African-American History

I agree strongly. The Philadelphia School District now requires the subject as a graduation requirement. Although I think there should be a further requirement in the study of the History of black African Civilizations and the subjects who played roles in those often hidden accomplishments.

Also the works of the countless black authors and researchers should no longer be passed over and therefore be included as a main source for information. I am a witness to the life altering effects from being exposed to such information and is angered by the fact that this part of my roots is being denied access today in the United States educational systems. I am blessed to have done years of field research in Egypt, Ethiopia, and west Africa and can attest to the now different attitude I have developed, especially along the lines of economics and commerce and my newly nutured love for this people. These exposures has spurred my interest to become more astute on US and other world nations foreign policies and identify the historical connections to the very concerns we experience and talk about today.

It amazes me how Black African ... African-Americans have been written out of the respectful commentaries of world history. Just as they were excluded from American History. I was lucky. I was around 21-23 years old when I first began to realized that I am of black African slave descent and not a descendant of Pilgrims as we were made to believe in the teaching we received in public schools.Some blacks go a life time without ever making the connection and will deny it as fact if you challenge their thinking. This I must say is very sad ... very sad indeed.

xxPeter, at 8:00 am EDT on August 14, 2007

If they are offering these highly specialized courses already, then YES, YES, YES, there should be African-America history classes. We wonder “why don’t AA students want to take these AP classes?"; well, maybe it’s because they feel left out. Maybe there’s some resentment over the fact that they can learn Latin, which isn’t even in wide use anymore, but not their own history in their own country.

However, I only say “Yes” because of the other highly specialized AP courses. I really think we just need to stop pretending college-level work or thinking happens in AP courses. IT DOES NOT. Like has been said here, half the college students I intercept (at a fairly reputable university) seem to be functionally illiterate, have little work ethic, and have to be threatened by letters to parents to come to class (I am still disgusted every time that the word “parents” comes into conversation about university and class policy).

Either way, African-American history deserves a MUCH greater role in high school education, and, I believe needs to be integrated into secondary education in the first place.

Nathan, at 6:40 am EDT on April 24, 2008