College Board Changes AP African American Studies Curriculum

… Now I would expect this from Florida. It’s Florida. But the College Board?

It’s not that I think the College Board is particularly ethical, or that I think I’m an expert on the black experience in America, but I taught AP Lang and AP Lit; the texts College Board recommends are forward-thinking and complex. They tackle big ideas about power. Hell, one of the AP Lit exam’s most cited texts is Invisible Man (SPOILER ALERT: it’s a metaphor for institutional racism)!

Critical Race Theory has been a weird sticking point for a lot of parents and politicians, and it’s extra weird because unless students are taking a college-level course like AP Lit or African American studies, they wouldn’t be learning it anyway. Critical theory is a challenging topic that I struggled with even as an undergraduate. But if ever there was a place to teach about a way of looking at history and literature through the lens of institutional racism, I’m pretty sure AP African American studies was the place!

As that New York Times article points out, the curriculum is still in draft form, and lesson plans are constantly changing. I’m also no longer a teacher, so I’m not as qualified as once I was to weigh in on the subject (luckily, I’m also not as stressed, burned out, and depressed as I was back then). But taking things like the Black Lives Matter movement off the exam feels like a loaded decision. And “African American Studies Course Removed Content That Rural White Folks Don’t Like” just isn’t a good look at all. 

On top of everything else, it’s disappointing that students might lose a chance to read Ta-Nehisi Coates and bell hooks. They may never get to study one of the best poems I’ve ever heard because it’s about police brutality. 

I know great teachers will still teach great lessons to great classes of kids, but they don’t need one more obstacle to getting it done.