A Brooklyn college’s college students fought so as to add AP African American Research to their curriculum

In June 2020, after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd galvanized racial injustice protests globally, Brooklyn Preparatory Excessive College organized a discussion board for its employees and the predominantly Black and Hispanic pupil physique to share their ideas and specific their emotions.

“These three deaths particularly had an impact on all of us, but additionally particularly our college students,” mentioned J.P. King, a historical past trainer and the chief expertise officer on the New York Metropolis college, “and our administration and lecturers prioritized listening to what college students needed to say about it.”

The discussion board, held through Zoom because the Covid pandemic disrupted schooling, was open to all the college and included a panel of employees members and college students. What got here from it was an outpouring of feelings — in addition to a common frustration from college students about not seeing themselves sufficient within the curriculum, King and directors mentioned. 

With the assistance of their assistant principal and the backing of the AP for All initiative of the New York Metropolis Division of Training, college students and employees launched a petition calling for African American Research to be among the many School Board’s Superior Placement choices. After a two-year push, the college is now amongst 60 throughout the nation taking part in a pilot program launched this fall for AP African American Research — at a time when instructing about race is below assault throughout the USA. 

Amirah Riddick, 17, of Brooklyn, who was among the many college students who advocated for the course to be added to Brooklyn Prep’s AP choices, described it as “a recreation changer.”

“Numerous our historical past lessons, we find out about white historical past like Europeans, like colonization, and lots of issues like that,” mentioned Riddick, a senior who hopes to review journalism at Northwestern College. “And I really feel like us being largely Hispanic, largely African American college students, largely Caribbean college students, we do not get to be taught lots about our cultures and the ways in which we had been thriving. We be taught extra in regards to the ways in which we had been confined like in slavery, and simply how we had been handled.”

Throughout a current class, Brooklyn Prep Assistant Principal Shannah Henderson, who teaches the course, had college students work in small teams to research the poem “Heritage” by Countee Cullen. She mentioned her function is primarily to remind the scholars “in regards to the completely different views, and the completely different voices” and to handle the completely different cultural expectations of the kids, in step with the course design. 

If not for her, this system could not have come to Brooklyn Prep. 

Henderson has been the college’s AP coordinator for a decade and mentioned in that point, she has “had the privilege of listening to the scholars’ complaints” about which AP lessons they did not have. In June 2020, King helped her draft a pair of tweets addressed to the School Board, demanding a course that speaks to their college students’ “historical past, heritage, tradition, lives and experiences.”

Henderson mentioned Trevor Packer, the senior vp and the pinnacle of the AP Program and the instruction division, responded.

“And what he mentioned was, there was curiosity in doing it from the School Board, however they discovered it was not sufficient curiosity from universities. So that they had been nonetheless engaged on it,” Henderson mentioned. 

Someday final yr, she mentioned, she discovered in regards to the pilot program however Brooklyn Prep had not been invited to take part. So she once more contacted Packer. “I mentioned, ‘Hey, we did the petition, keep in mind us?’ And we bought into the pilot program,” she mentioned.

Requested what it required to be thought of for the pilot program, Henderson mentioned: “Curiosity and help out of your college district. And your principal clearly.”

Henderson traveled to Howard College in July to be educated on the best way to train the course. She mentioned that as a result of she would not have a level in African American research, she was additionally required to take on-line programs on the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American Historical past.

The School Board has mentioned that the course had been a decade within the making. Henderson credited Packer with being receptive to her college students and their petition and mentioned that she believes the racial reckoning of 2020 and the rise of pupil voices and activism throughout that point “undoubtedly helped to place up a spark in a fireplace.” 

In response to an interview request from NBC Information, the School Board mentioned it lately printed a set of rules for all AP programs making clear that college students will encounter proof, weigh competing viewpoints, and are available to their very own conclusions. 

“AP college students are by no means required to agree with a selected opinion or undertake a selected ideology, however they’re anticipated to research completely different views,” it mentioned in a press release.

AP African American Research is multidisciplinary, drawing from literature, the humanities and humanities, political science, geography and science. The course is anticipated to be obtainable to all excessive faculties within the 2024-25 college yr, as soon as faculties and universities have confirmed their credit score and placement insurance policies for the course’s AP examination, the School Board mentioned. 

“As with all AP programs within the humanities, it isn’t a idea course; college students as a substitute immerse themselves in major sources,” it mentioned. “The course is designed to encourage college students to look at every theme from a wide range of views, with out ideology, in step with the sector’s custom of debates.”