During this academic school year, IHS freshmen were given the opportunity to take AP World History, one of the most challenging of all social-studies AP courses with only about 6 percent of all test takers in 2015 receiving the maximum score of 5. Many students experienced the grind associated with balancing schoolwork with procrastination and extracurricular activities early on in their high-school careers.
The selection process for the course was puzzling to most. While middle-school teachers encouraged students to take AP World History, letters from IHS students enrolled in the course offered gloomier prospects. Most complained of endless homework and overwhelming stress. These were only first of many challenges during the freshman experience before the course itself. Due to complications with the combined English and World History courses, many students found themselves unable to actually enroll, due to the computationally incorrect filling of earlier classes. They entered bewildered, and as the year progressed, bewildered they remained. I spoke with students taking the course and got their insights in the matter.
“I was confused by the selection process because as our social studies teachers encouraged us to enroll in the course, we received letters from students who had taken the course cautioning us from taking it. The mixed messages we received made the process of taking an AP Course complicated.”
There were three main challenges to the AP curriculum. First, the workload of taking an AP course was dreadful. While most classes in the past required less than half an hour per day of work, AP World requires at least one hour of homework a night, or more likely, five to seven on a single day of the weekend. It was most taxing in the beginning of the year when club attendance was required, the IHS building seemed foreign, and freshmen didn’t yet fully feel like a part of the community.
“We had a gruelling 5–6 hours of work each week. In addition to the time consuming guided notes, we had a multitude of small assignment. These small assignments felt unnecessary at the end of the year, teaching Global 1 topics which we absolutely did not need to know.”
For many freshmen, another challenge in taking an AP course was the level of interaction among classmates and the style of teaching. Students needed broader historical knowledge and greater conceptual understanding to succeed, and standard teaching methods were ineffective in most cases. It was also challenging to constantly interact with peers, do simulations and group work more often than before, and consistently produce high-quality work despite varying grasps of the content among students.
Lastly, the AP exam produced by the College Board was a slap in the face. Even for freshmen who were top-performing students in middle school, the exam was challenging. As freshmen emerged from the AP exam unsure of their scores, many were happy just having that looming date behind them. If they had not taken AP courses in our freshman year, this could have been different. The essay preparation in the Global 1 and 2 courses is successively more rigorous and would have left them better prepared to format essays and maximize time.
“The hardest part of the AP Exam was structuring essays. The questions did not lend themselves to ease in essays. I didn’t feel prepared originally as we had previously had minimal World History and insufficient essay-writing instruction, and we were all playing catch-up. We were glad to be under good instruction.”
However, taking AP World History fostered a tight-knit community among those taking it, as students met for two combined periods each day. The sense of uncertainty going into APs from middle-school instruction and the effort that was put in to maximize project grades also cultivated a sense of community. Confronting a college-level course in high school resulted in new in-class experiences and in the formation of a great community of classmates.
“Despite all of the challenges, I enjoyed all of the lively discourse we had. Our teacher allowed the discussion to go, and it was humor and friendship which allowed us to persevere through this tough year.”
The decision to allow freshmen to take an AP course this early on in their high school careers is one that will certainly derive controversy and has left many students less prepared to take exams. However, while it has placed many IHS students in challenging educational environments, many freshmen still value their experience as AP students.