Not sure what social studies class to take next year? Consider AP African American Studies! It offers solid course rigor, a GPA boost and is comparable to courses such as AP United States History, and AP World History and can be taken junior or senior year as your social studies class or even as an elective. Class registration does not close until February 27 so there is a decent amount of time to consider your options for rising juniors/seniors. This year is also the first year the course was offered at Garfield High School and it is having quite a lot of success so far despite being brand new.
The Garfield social studies department has a gap when it comes to diversity of teachers. “There’s a whole lot of things I don’t know, it’s a challenge, but it’s a trade off, do we not offer it – because I know our department’s not going to get crazy diverse anytime soon – and so do we not just offer it because of that?” Richard Truax, Garfield’s AP African American Studies teacher said.
Although Truax is not African American, the pursuit for success in the class has not stopped and is looking strong as the AP test approaches. “Mr. Truax is very passionate about teaching AP African American Studies, and it shows in class,” Addie Apple-Carter, AP African American Studies student, said. “Although it would’ve been better if an African American teacher taught the class, there are no African American history teachers at Garfield so I think it’s really good that Mr. Truax stepped up to teach an APAA class even if he isn’t ethnic,” Apple-Carter said.
Additionally, since this course is new at Garfield, the rigor has proved to be less difficult than AP US History. AP US History covers nine units whilst AP African American covers four units. “The class isn’t super rigorous, we usually have one assignment per day that we have to finish by the end of the night. We also have to study for the tests but the content really isn’t that hard to learn and there’s not much homework,” Apple-Carter said. As long as one is willing to put in the work for this class, success is in sight and Truax is doing a fine job at preparing his students for the upcoming AP test. “I do work really hard on writing so I know that they’ll be well prepped for the writing side of the exam,” Truax said.
Things seem to be falling in the right direction for this up-and-coming course as it will transform and only get better as the years go on. The department is also actively looking for someone of African American heritage to help enhance this course to be better for the students. “It would be a way more powerful class if we were to get somebody who was African American. I certainly have shared that with Ms. Actin, because she was looking for a student teacher and I said ‘if you could find an African American student teacher that would be really nice to able to [work] with them on the class next year,” Truax said.
