Cramming for the AP exam ruined his U.S. history course, writes AP drop-out Tom Stanley-Becker in the Los Angeles Times.
The problem with the AP program is that we don’t have time to really learn U.S. history because we’re preparing for the exam. We race through the textbook, cramming in the facts, a day on the Great Awakening, a week on the Civil War and Reconstruction, a week on World War II, a week on the era from FDR to JFK, a day on the civil rights movement—with nothing on transcendentalism, or the Harlem Renaissance, or Albert Einstein. There is no time to write a paper.
Without the pressure of the AP course, Stanley-Becker is doing independent research, he writes, “reading the words of George Kennan, Lillian Hellman, Harry Truman and Paul Robeson for a paper I’m writing on the Cold War.” How many AP drop-outs have the opportunity and motivation to do that, as opposed to taking an easier, textbook-zipping U.S. history class?
When I took U.S. history in eighth grade, there was, of course, less U.S. history. But we still ran out of time at the Depression. World War II was a day, not a week. The Cold War shared a day with the review for the final. I took AP history in high school and remember it very fondly. We had time to discuss ideas — though we ran out of time at the Depression, just like in eighth grade. All we knew about World War II was who won. Us!
AP (and IB) courses “dazzle” when compared to the usual alternatives, writes Liam Julian on Flypaper. But they don’t satisfy students who want to think deeply about what they’re studying. Eric Osberg counters that his AP U.S. history class featured discussions and essays — because they’d taken a survey class the year before.
I wonder if there’s more fact cramming now because AP students start with less basic knowledge. Or maybe there are more questions on 20th-century history.
I took AP US History in high school. We had a three semester class plus we had to independently learn the late Great Depression - WWII era in the summer between the 2nd and 3rd semesters. I can imagine cramming it all into 2 semesters would be overwhelming.
(And no, I didn’t take the AP exam…shame on me!)
By high school, most students should have enough factual knowledge. These kids lack the necessary background knowledge to dig deeper. I reasonable survey of Ameican History should have happened in middle school. The Hakim books, The Story of US, are a great source.
I took “regular” US history in high school (Well, it was probably better than most, because I went to prep school). Towards the end of the semester, the teacher “invited” those of us who had made high marks on the exams and papers class to take the AP exam.
I do not remember cramming for the exam at all. In fact, I think my teacher’s main advice to us was “Get a good night’s sleep the night before the test.”
I made a 5 on the test - without taking a “special” AP class, without cramming. Of course, this was 20+ years ago so maybe things have changed. But I tend to be of the opinion that if you work hard and study regularly, you shouldn’t have to cram. Even for an AP test.
And we did do some “deeper thinking” in that class - we wrote papers exploring different issues, and we looked at different sides of an issue (not just the currently-approved interpretation.)
Back in the late 80s, our AP US History class did cover 200+ years in 8 months, but the way it did so was exactly what Stanley-Becker is complaining about not getting today: Mr. Hicks taught a class on using primary sources to write essays, which just happened to use primary sources from American history.
We weren’t reading full-length books from the period, but we spent as much time with essays, speeches, newspaper articles, and the like trying to analyze them and use them as fodder for our own essays as we did answering typical inane textbook regurgitation questions.
Seems that it would be difficult to do both in the same class. AP might be said to have the wrong idea about history, but there is the point that you need what amounts to a framework or armature on which to hang various concepts and facts, or they remain isolated, interesting concepts or facts.
Twenty more years is about 5% more time (from Jamestown settlement), so that isn’t an issue.
What is an issue is the horrendously awful knowledge of history in the kids entering an AP class. There is little to build on when part of the class needs to be remediation.
To really get history, you need to do it yourself. There simply isn’t enough time, short of a college major, to even scratch the surface of any one issue or era in a formal educational setting.
The author goes to the University of Chicago lab school; I would hazard a guess that his history education to this point is significantly above that of the average student. Reading primary sources in the survey course he’s taking is great if you already know the facts & dates summarized in the textbooks; otherwise, it’s pretty darned difficult to put those primary sources in the proper context. If he’s got the historical background to take that class, then good for him; not everyone - even AP students - will have the same background.
Second, there’s nothing in the AP course material that mandates it being a ‘cram’ course. If that’s what was being taught in his classroom, then that’s a problem for that classroom - not the curricula. As I remember it, the AP exam includes an essay portion, including a document-based question; if they’re not writing papers or examining documents, then it’s not even a very good ‘cram’ class, either.
The AP US History (APUSH) exam is a hard test. It has a multiple choice section, an essay section and a document-based question where the students have to integrate various primary sources. It doesn’t include writing a research paper.
The APUSH teacher who doesn’t require his students to write a research paper gives them more time to study the material that will actually be on the test. (The APUSH curriculum might have to include writing a research paper for the course to be certifed, though; I don’t know about that.)
I think the issue with not writing papers is the idea that AP classes are sold as comparable to college level classes. Sure you can find a History 101 that’s simply multiple choice question tests, but I think more classes probably require at least one paper.
The AP classes are supposed to prepare kids for the tests, but they aren’t supposed to just be test prep and cramming. For that, you can just buy a commercial guide for $20 bucks.
I do think AP kids probably know less history when they start the class than they used to. I think that the trend toward project based, constructionist methods in the early grades mean the kids don’t have a broad background in much. While it’s great to know a few things well, it won’t help much in a survey history class.
So now the high school AP teachers have give the complete general background kids used to get in elementary school or junior high or even at home or from reading for pleasure back in the days when the kids in APUSH really liked and were good at history, before schools were judged by the number of kids taking AP exams.
That guy is either lying or his teacher is committing fraud. Students don’t spend time learning how to bubble in answers, or discuss what is more likely to be on the test. Not in most APUSH classes I’m familiar with.
The LA Times is notorious for printing “op ed” pieces that are more fiction than reality–the late Cathy Seipp’s article about her daughter getting accepted to UC San Diego with a 500-600 SAT score is another prime example of WTF?
I run an AP prep course, and I can somehow manage to cover tons of material in an entertaining and memorable fashion in 10-12 weeks. And yet somehow, this schlub’s teacher can’t manage the same in 8months?
It’s all a lie, or a big stretch.
When I took history in high school we managed to finish the book, but I think that this might have been because our teacher knew how to read a calendar and divide the number of chapters in the book by the number of weeks in the class…