Owen Maier ’20
Drastic changes have occurred in one of the most popular courses at Episcopal: AP World History. In response to recent underperforming student essays on the AP exam, the College Board is changing the curriculum to covering material from 1200 CE to present, instead of the 10,000 years that were taught in the past. This change, which was announced in July of this year, will be in effect for the 2019-20 school year, so current freshmen will be the first impacted. The revised course will take the name “AP World History: Modern” to reflect the new periods. In addition to this, CollegeBoard, the company that runs AP courses, may develop “AP World History: Ancient” that covers “10,000 years of world history”, depending on feedback and willingness to participate from high schools and colleges.
This change was also pushed by AP World teachers, who the CollegeBoard said were “teaching too little about too much.” However, as soon as the CollegeBoard announced they would move the starting date to 1450 AD, many teachers strongly opposed the measure because it would only really show the Western world in power, and fail to recognize how much of an impact the East had on the development of Renaissance Europe. However, freshmen at Episcopal take pre-modern history, so they already have a basic foundation of early civilizations is going into AP World History.
This makes much of the material taught sophomore year feel redundant, according to Braeden Dinger ‘20. He noted that “I feel like while we were learning about some specific details that I didn’t know about, overall I felt like I had seen much of the material from the first semester.” Mr. Schuh agrees and believes the change will make teaching AP World a lot better, particularly for EA. He added that “since all the freshmen take pre-modern, the first part of our class is largely review, which costs us a lot of time at the end [of the year].” He thinks that the shorter time frame will allow classes to go in-depth on material and “go into contemporary issues a lot more deeply which I’m excited about.” As for “AP World: Ancient”, he believes that Episcopal will look deeply into offering this course if enough colleges give credit for taking the class. Students should know that AP World will become more detail-oriented according to the teachers, and closer to the reputation that AP US History has right now. Mr. Kuzemka added that students should also expect the possibility of more projects that are focused on a specific event, ones that would not have been able to be achieved under the current time periods.
While it may feel shocking to begin covering less than half of as much human history as right now, many believe the AP World History change to 1200 CE will benefit everyone. Sophomores will not need to relearn material, and teachers will be able to go in depth into the topics that previously were glossed over, enriching the experience for all involved.