AP ain’t to blame
As with any program, implementation in AP really matters, so it’s disappointing that Tom Stanley-Becker doesn’t say more about how history is taught at his school. Was the AP class his only recent exposure to American history? I have fond memories of my own AP history experience, years ago, because it was precisely what he says he’s missing—we read only essays, and the classes featured roundtable discussions of big and interesting issues. But this was possible because we had all taken the basic American history class the year prior, consuming dates, people, and events in order to free us to talk more about ideas in the second year. I could easily see it being impossible to do both well in a single year, and if that’s happening it’s the fault of the school, not the program.
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May 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
As usual, it is an issue of culture. Wierdly, I came from academia and fell in love with teaching in the inner city when my neighborhood became the epicenter of crack houses in oklahom a City. But I taught enough AP to recognize how the College Board culture pervades the program. Given all of the puroblems in education, APs problems are small, and not worth worrying about. But still, you have to distinguish between the principles exposed by the College Board vs. the way they socialize teachers.
I saw the culture from a different perspective when I went for National Certification. I did not learn until the end of the program that the College Board had created the grading format. The process had been explained by a booklet funded by the NEH, which diescxribed history as a “grand mosaic” with multiple approaches. Had I known that the tests where graded by teachers steeped in the culture of “there is the right way, the wrong way, and the College Board way,” I would have played their game. Even so, I thought I was lucky. The trest question ON SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE, NOT TEACHING was about 18th century England, and I had had a special grad seminar on that subject with Lawrence Stone at Princeton. The College Board ruled that I had “Little Knowledge” of the subject.
Another question was on the social origins of the Okies, and I had written a book on the subject which won the Western Historical Assocciation’s Athearn Award for the nation’s best 20th century Western History book written over a a two year period. The College Board ruled that I had “No Knowledge” of the subject.
And as we were told in advance by the College Board rep, no appeals are ever honeored by the organization. When they “review” a test, they do not “reread” it. They just make sure that no pages were lost or there was no computer malfunction.
That approach, of course, is due to ther litigious culture of the College Board.
But like I said, these aren’t serious problems. My experience just remended me of how lucky I am to not be born into the poverty and isolation of my students.
The big challenge is to get my students acquainted to the culture of college, and the working world.