Education Week - March 8, 2023 - 11

The Pilot AP African
American Studies
Course: What
Teachers Are Saying
The course offers students
representation like never before,
two Oklahoma teachers said
By Eesha Pendharkar
Darren Williams is one of two
teachers in the Tulsa school district
who signed up to teach the pilot version
of the Advanced Placement African
American Studies course this
school year.
During a discussion on lynching,
he recalls one of his students asking:
" I wonder if people ever were sorry
about what they did? "
So Williams decided that, as part of
his class at McLain High School, he
would show a video about the Equal
Justice Initiative, the organization
that established the Legacy Museum
in Montgomery, Ala.-part of the
supplemental resources provided for
the course-to talk about the legacy
of enslavement and its connections to
mass incarceration and more current
racial inequality.
After watching the video, students
began asking if they could take a trip to
see the museum, which Williams spoke
to his principal about coordinating. The
initial interest came from a Hispanic
student in his class, Williams said.
" I'm seeing that students from
other racial backgrounds [and] ethnic
backgrounds are interested in the subject
too, " he said.
" This history, African American history,
is American history. It is world
history. "
For Williams and Shekinah Hall,
his colleague who is also teaching
the pilot AP course in Tulsa, the
course has been instrumental in exposing
students to different aspects
of Black history and culture. It's
proving to be enlightening and engaging
to the more than 40 students
taking the class at McLain, the only
high school offering two separate
classes of the pilot course in the
country this school year, according
to the Tulsa district.
" The fact that the subject African
American studies was given the
attention of an AP course was the
main attractive piece to me, " said
Williams. " And outside of that overarching
thing, whether intended or
not by the designers of the course,
by the College Board, this course is
actually a step towards educational
justice. "
Oklahoma is one of 18 states with
similar laws to Florida, which has rejected
the course for allegedly lacking
educational value, historical accuracy,
and violating the state's " Stop
W.O.K.E " law. The resulting dispute
between Florida and the College
Board-the organization that developed
the course-has opened a new
front in the larger conservative push to
limit what students in K-12 learn about
America's difficult history with race
and racism.
The recently released framework
for the AP course-which includes
changes from the pilot version now
being taught in 60 high schools-will
be just as valuable, both teachers said
in interviews with Education Week.
However, the criticism in Florida
and beyond is disheartening for both
Hall and Williams, because the course
allows students representation and
knowledge they've never received
before, and will eventually give students
a chance to earn college credit
for studying history from a non-Eurocentric
perspective for the first time.
While Oklahoma officials have
taken no action against the course,
both teachers are keenly aware of
their state's restrictions on conversations
about race and racism, and
the consequences of violating those.
Last year, the Oklahoma education
department downgraded the Tulsa
district's accreditation in response
to a teacher's complaint that a staff
training on implicit bias " shamed
white people. "
" Especially as a Black woman, to
hear all this criticism about African
American studies is ridiculous because
you're saying ... this racial group
doesn't matter, " said Hall.
" Children, especially Black boys and
girls, and all the students that we have,
they need to be taught that it's okay to
be Black and it's okay to see that we're
not ... just enslaved, we're not just
always going to be oppressed. "
How teachers cover contested
topics
In January, Florida's education department
sent a letter to the College
Board, the organization that offers
AP classes, that the pilot version of
the African American Studies course
would be banned from Florida high
schools because it lacked educational
value and historical accuracy. It also
allegedly violated state law, according
to that letter. There were a few
topics within the pilot course, such as
intersectionality, abolishing prisons,
the Black Lives Matter movement,
and Black queer studies, that the department
and DeSantis specifically
challenged.
Shekinah Hall, a teacher at McLain High School in Tulsa, Okla., is one of two teachers in Tulsa who are teaching a
pilot course of Advanced Placement African American Studies this school year.
Since then, the College Board has released
a finalized version of the course
framework and assured its members
that neither Florida nor any other state
or school district's feedback helped
shape the final version despite speculation
that a lot of those content areas
Florida objected to are made optional
in the final version of the curriculum.
The course received some criticism
from Black scholars for not mandating
the study of topics Florida officials disapproved.
But others called it a good
first step, given that most states don't
require any kind of African American
studies or African American history
classes.
When Hall first saw the final version
of the course, she thought it didn't
look that different from the pilot she
is teaching, and only took note of the
changes once the public perception
and reporting started highlighting
some topics that they alleged the College
Board had removed, she said.
" If I wasn't teaching the course,
and I saw all these things being taken
away, I would be frustrated too, " Hall
said.
" But as a teacher, nothing's really
being taken from us. You can still
use it and [there are] resources for
anyone wanting to do these things. I
think that is the beauty of the course,
because it gives so much say for students
to create their own thoughts
and perspectives. "
The more modern aspects of the
course, such as Black queer studies,
the Black Lives Matter movement,
and abolishing prisons were not mandatory
even in the pilot, according to
Williams, and because the course is
taught chronologically, those topics
would not even have come up until
later in this ongoing semester.
But teachers are still able to use
those subjects in a way that is meaningful
to the rest of the course.
" You're talking about things like
Reconstruction and the 13th Amendment
and policing, it's basically impossible
not to connect that to mass
incarceration that we see today, especially
with people of color, " Hall
said, drawing a comparison between
turbulence caused by attempting to
reintegrate 4 million newly-freed
people into the United States following
the end of the Civil War, and
modern day systemic racism.
What stands out about the course
The AP course they have been
teaching is comprehensive, both
teachers said, and provides an unprecedented
opportunity for all students
to understand how interconnected
African American history is
with American and world history,
and how it ties to modern day life.
The course starts before enslavement,
with the history of African civilizations.
The decision to start teaching
African history before slavery is
" radical, " Hall said.
" If you start with African Americans
and slavery, everything else that
happens to that seems like progress, "
Williams added. " But if you move
the goalposts back and recognize the
success of African civilizations before
that, what is understood is that the
enslavement of Africans was an interruption
of African history. "
Both teachers said that the College
Board considered their feedback on
teaching the pilot version of the course,
which the organization solicited in a
weekly email on Fridays, asking teachers
what they learned that week.
" A lot of us gave feedback and opportunities
for growth, and I think
that's where a lot of the changes are
coming from, " Hall said about the finalized
framework.
Hall said students have been more
engaged in this AP class compared
to other classes she teaches because
of the flexibility of classroom discussions.
While Williams' class is more
racially diverse, Hall's class is mostly
Black students, who she says can see
themselves reflected in the lessons
and materials.
(Tulsa public schools has more than
33,000 students across more than
six dozen schools and its nonwhite
enrollment is more than 50 percent.
For McLain High School, the student
body is 91 percent nonwhite.)
Other Republican-led states might
be following in Florida's footsteps,
as the AP African American Studies
course is under review in Arkansas,
and Texas lawmakers introduced a
bill attempting to remove any parts of
the course that violate its anti-critical
race theory, or divisive concepts, law.
" Any attempt to keep students from
learning all about what this country's
history is instead of just a romanticized
version of what this country's history
is, holds us back as a nation, " Williams
said. " And the students in the states of
Florida, Texas, wherever else laws will
be made against teaching of AP African
American Studies, the students
will be the ones who suffer. "
State laws make teachers wary
Both teachers said they won't be
surprised if Oklahoma follows Florida's
lead. Oklahoma was one of the
first states to pass a divisive concepts
law almost two years ago. Since then,
it has become the only state where
school districts have had their accreditation
docked for allegedly violating
the law.
Despite the challenges it has
faced, the Tulsa district has continued
to stand up for the fuller teaching
of race, racism, and history. For
example, in 2021, the district mandated
that the Tulsa Race Massacre
be taught in its schools ahead of the
100-year anniversary of a white mob
destroying Tulsa's Black Greenwood
neighborhood, killing hundreds of
people and destroying many successful
businesses.
Williams and Hall said it's natural
for teachers to be nervous when talking
about these topics in light of these
laws, but the support of their district
leaders gives them confidence.
" It's an injustice for me and my students
and everyone that worked so
hard for this course not to teach what
we have to teach, " Hall said. " I don't
think that we are forcing anyone to
believe anything ... because CRT is so
vague, anyone could attack anything
that we say. And I think that's just like
a daily thing that teachers face. "
EDUCATION WEEK | March 8, 2023 | www.edweek.org | 11
Courtesy of Tulsa Public Schools

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - March 8, 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - March 8, 2023