A course meant to inspire more Black students to take AP classes
I don’t encourage boys to go into engineering either. For individual students with the interest and aptitude to become engineers, I did everything I could to help them become engineers. I have recommended colleges, suggested specific majors and made arrangements for them to talk to people I know working in their intended field. The same things I would do for any of my students.
As a teacher, my duty was to my students. Not to the school, an agenda or some societal good. I asked about their interests and ambitions, and did what I could to help them out.
One student wanted to become a professional wrestler. That sounds like a terrible ambition to me, but it’s not my life. I gave him as much guidance as I was able. Mike Mizanin went on to become “The Miz” and is a celebrity. His success had little to do with me, my point is that I don’t judge.
Back before Facebook sucked, I had an account for former students, and developed a pretty significant network of professionals in a variety of fields to draw on.
The mere existence of the high school Advanced Placement course in African American Studies has become a political wedge. It was created for two primary reasons: to legitimize Black history as a necessary subject matter in American schools and to reverse the underrepresentation of Black students in AP courses.
Black history is American history. It isn’t legitimate or necessary to break it off into a separate course. Doing so turns it into a grievance study course that emphasizes racial oppression.
AP courses predict success in college because AP courses are rigorous with objective assessments. Students must have aptitude and motivation to succeed. Making a watered-down, bullshit AP course for Black kids is the epitome of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
I don’t know why Black kids don’t take AP courses, but I do know that the people in charge don’t know or won’t say, either. When I did my student-teaching at Shaker Heights High School, there was one Black kid in AP Calculus. I didn’t teach that course, but did tutor and help out. I got to know the students. She told me that she got a ton of shit from Black kids for taking a White course. Shaker Heights is a wealthy suburb of Liberals, with the school being 40% White and 40% Black. I didn’t see any hint of structural racism.
Black students may not be taking AP courses because plenty of loud voices tell them that studying is racist, math is racist, objective knowledge is racist, being punctual is racist, in fact, anything that sounds like buckling down and applying yourself is racist.
What does Utopia look like to the Leftists? I can’t tell what they are driving toward.
I propose that teachers challenge every student to accomplish more than they thought they could, and that schools offer a variety of courses to allow students to become productive adults. Stop worrying about how many girls are in Physics and how many Black kids are in AP classes. In fact, let’s stop tracking that stuff altogether.
During my 17 years teaching AP Physics, the other Physics teacher was unsettled by the lack of girls in AP Physics. AP Physics probably had 5 times more guys, than girls. That didn’t bother me because the girls were in Anatomy and Physiology, Biology 2 or Chemistry 2. Regular Physics was about a 50/50 split. Girls tended toward medical careers and boys tended toward engineering.
It was not my place to reorder society. My duty was to my students, not some unhinged view of equity.