I currently reside in California and as US History becomes longer it is starting to feel like the AP US History curriculum should be spread out among 3 high school semesters.
Although I am aware that US history is taught starting in first grade, I don’t believe the AP exam assesses prior knowledge.
Will it eventually have to be an A/B/C AP course, similar to Calculus and Physics?
Is there a comparable one-year historical survey course offered abroad? Is it a one-year course that aims to cover all aspects of English history? How that could be possible, I don’t see.
I am disappointed in the lack of depth and actual historical research as I see my son take it this year. The lesson begins to feel like a trivia contest cram session.
Some local schools offer AP Physics for Part 1, while others only offer Part 2.
My dream would be for districts to be able to select between teaching an AP US History course (AB) or a BC US History course (BC), covering three semesters of content.
Which section to cover in a course is up to the schools.
Although it would cover fewer years at a deeper level, the course would still last a year.
In my country, the UK, the quality of history at the primary level is patchy and can be quite variable.
There are three years of required history in secondary school when history is first taught as a separate, specialized topic by a professional. Typically, these years follow the following roughly chronological order: Year 7 (first year of secondary school): Medieval, covering events from 1066 and the Norman Conquest until perhaps the Tudor era in the 16th century. Year 8: Early modern to 19th-century events, frequently involving the Industrial Revolution, the English Civil War, and the slave trade. Year 9 covers the 20th century and includes topics including the British Empire, migration, women’s suffrage, World Wars I and II, and the Holocaust (which is the only specific topic that MUST be taught by law).
We don’t cover everything since, in the UK, studying history is less about a particular set of events and more about developing abilities (analysis, assessment, critical thinking, debate, and interpretation, for example).
I think AP history was offered at my high school. which, in my opinion, ought to be taught in all history classes. I was irritated to discover in my college history lectures that everything I had been taught in public school had been a whitewashed, sugarcoated falsehood.