A mother on Twitter named Rachel Grant posted a tweet (an linked some pics) of an insanely offensive 55 page AP study packet he daughter brought home. The internet is blowing up over it but having been played by outrage stories before this is so over the top I’m not sure I trust it.
It feels real in context re the angry mom but the material is so offensive I can’t imagine even the stupidest and most racist teacher thinking they would get away with this.
Is this real or shenanigans?
Seems rather elaborate for a prank or joke, but I don’t know. Snopes doesn’t seem to even have an article yet.
I mean, I know teachers that put their own slant on history. My American History teacher in college taught U.S. history from a religious perspective. Granted, what he said wasn’t really untrue–it’s not like he taught that the Founding Fathers were Christians or anything. But he did present American history though a religious lens, saying it was a perspective that isn’t normally taught.
If a university professor can be an active Sandy Hook-truther I find the existence of a history teacher dumb enough to think that package was a sensible choice unsurprising.
We’ll find out if it’s real or not soon enough.
I’ll wait to see if it’s confirmed to be real, but it’s entirely plausible to me.
I am skeptical that a study packet for AP US History would include such recent developments as the “Black Lives Matter,” movement.
That doesn’t invalidate the story, but it’s a credibility hit.
If it was developed by the teacher, why would that affect its credibility?
Why? If the teacher updates his study packet every year to reflect current events (which a good AP History teacher should, to help kids understand the importance of History and relevance in their lives) then it makes sense that a conservative AP History teacher would put exactly that in his study packet.
And while it isn’t an interpretation of the results The Great Society I agree with, and it acknowledge very similar issues inter-generational poverty has brought to places like West Virginia, which are predominately white, or the effect of birth control, women’s rights, and the sexual revolution on single parenthood for all races, I think its a valid historical interpretation.
Merely because it requires an additional ad hoc assumption: that not only is the teacher’s viewpoint as controversial as this one’s is, and not only does the teacher permit that viewpoint to bleed so blatantly into his course materials, he additionally is so unaware of the purpose of an AP Study Guide that he adds material that’s well-nigh impossible to be covered on the AP exam.
It’s not impossible, but it adds one more leap of faith.
No, here I disagree. A good teacher should certainly update his syllabus and course material to reflect current events, but an AP study guide is specifically intended to study for the AP exam, and should not contain material that is certainly extraneous to the AP exam.
It may be, although it’s phrased so dogmatically that it admits of no alternate interpretation, which should not be the tone taken. I suspect we will discover this is a false document, intended to highlight what the author sees as the same techniques used by the left uncontroversially.
I think these things are individually unlikely but collectively less so. That is, if the teacher has such controversial views and allows them to bleed blatantly into course materials, the disregard for professional norms that implies makes it quite easy to believe he might add information that won’t be covered on an exam. Once a person has robbed a bank, so to speak, it’s a small step to using the wrong fork at dinner.
Might be a hoax, but these things happen. My AP biology teacher was a creationist who taught us that macroevolution was false.
I vote for fake.
It certainly could be real*. If it is, this teacher is trying to create controversy; he’s explicitly attacking the APUSH test for ideological bias and trying to undermine its credibility. This doesn’t really bode well for his students’ scores if he’s right!
*I’m a paraeducator in a public school, and I observe a lot of teachers in action. A small but present minority see no problem in presenting their own pet beliefs on political topics as gospel. I can understand “teaching the controversy,” and even talking about one’s own opinions in that context, but one-sided teaching is the enemy of critical thinking.
Educators on the right have generally been pleased with the AP US History curriculum since the last round of changes, which shifted the framework somewhat to the right (or, as they saw it, stepped back from a previous shift too far to the left). Assuming this is real, this teacher must be a serious extremist if he is still grinding an axe over the test.
Are you sure it’s not a study guide for a regular classroom exam in the “AP History” class? I didn’t see that in the link. I took some AP classes in high school, and we had regular exams and then the AP exam at the end.
I had a high school U.S. history teacher (not AP) who was so far left that he made me uncomfortable, and I’m a pretty strong liberal (although I was less so in high school). His course consisted entirely of a series of units on leftist movements, including the Haymarket riot, the anti-Viet Nam War protest movement, and the Attica prison riot. While it was informative, I felt that we were missing a lot of significant historical events.
It’s possible that this teacher is similar in imposing his or her views on the curriculum.
In addition to Bricker’s comments, the fact that no major news outlets (or even minor ones that I can find) have picked it up suggests to me that this is more likely the case. I am pleasantly surprised that none of them have; I guess they are learning.
Boy, I’ll say! He completely left out Joe Hill, the Ludlow massacre, and McCarthyism.
Yea, the parent didn’t say anything about it being a study guide for any exam, class or AP. She said it was a packet of “what her AP history teacher is including as part of the curriculum.”
I have trouble believing an AP class teacher would think this is a good idea, and then go to the effort of creating a 55-page document of his own content. But I’m not sure what the parent’s end-game would be in making this up. I lean more toward the teacher really did hand this out (and probably got the content from some external source), but I wouldn’t be surprised if the parent’s story isn’t completely accurate.
Yes, but he did have us spend one class watching The Molly Maguires.