Down with the AP
Posted 09-03-2010 at 10:19 PM by EmmyNoether
Today I went to teach my third class of the semester. I felt like everything was going very well; I covered what I needed to with time to spare and got a chance to even answer some homework questions. I walked out of my classroom with three female students as they were asking me questions as to the logistics of setting up a meeting with me. Then one made mention that she had spent most of Monday and Tuesday teaching herself a concept that I always understood as being precalculus material. Then, a different student perked up and said that she was confused during the first two classes because she hadn't seen a notational thing that is so basic to me that I hadn't considered the possibility that people had never learned it. I looked at them shocked and asked, "well why didn't you speak up in class?" They didn't answer but I knew exactly that it was because they were too embarrassed and worried that it was just them that didn't get it. I realized that if these three girls are finally admitting to me in some confidence that they are lost, then there might just be a significant number of my students who do not understand some of the basics. In which case, I would be a horrible teacher if I didn't at least try to fill in their gaps as we move through the material.
What really upsets me about this situation is not my students, but the fact that they could still earn a 5 on a AP exam to place into this course. I am now reminded of a feeling I had in high school - that AP classes are more of a disservice than help to our education system. As a student, I almost felt forced into pushing myself through taking multiple AP courses for which I wasn't quite ready. I did it, not because I was so brilliant I needed to be challenged, but because I feared that my chances for college admissions were significantly reduced if I did not. Now as a teacher of college courses, I am beginning to see that what really separates high school and college is that high school should give you a certain set of skills/knowledge that college then expands upon in a holistic approach. History is no longer memorizing dates and people, it is tying in how the effect of an event altered an art movement which then led to a new outlook on the world which led to some more events. And math is beyond memorizing procedures and formulas but understanding how everything you've learned to date can be used in harmony to solve problems and help build logical constructs. I suppose if the AP courses offered in today's high schools actually did this, I shouldn't have a problem. They are designed to, however the issue is not the material but the instruction.
Most high school math teachers stop with a Bachelor's Degree and you are quite lucky if it was earned as a math major. It took me to the level of expectation of me as a 1 year grad student to start to piece it all together. It wasn't until I was a 4th year grad student who had by that time taught 6 college courses that I realized the intelligence that goes into designing a course and its syllabus. I am not saying that every once in a while there isn't some incredible teacher who has my qualifications teaching high school. However, given the gripes about math that I hear from a general population, I would say that the majority of math teachers are ill-equipped to teach any level of math, especially the AP. If you do not understand the subject at its very core, then you cannot teach - you can lecture. By this I mean, you can stand at the board and tell a group of students what to memorize and why it kinda makes sense by what the book writes. I wish our education system would realize that which I have seen - that we are hurting not helping our youth and therefore our future.
What really upsets me about this situation is not my students, but the fact that they could still earn a 5 on a AP exam to place into this course. I am now reminded of a feeling I had in high school - that AP classes are more of a disservice than help to our education system. As a student, I almost felt forced into pushing myself through taking multiple AP courses for which I wasn't quite ready. I did it, not because I was so brilliant I needed to be challenged, but because I feared that my chances for college admissions were significantly reduced if I did not. Now as a teacher of college courses, I am beginning to see that what really separates high school and college is that high school should give you a certain set of skills/knowledge that college then expands upon in a holistic approach. History is no longer memorizing dates and people, it is tying in how the effect of an event altered an art movement which then led to a new outlook on the world which led to some more events. And math is beyond memorizing procedures and formulas but understanding how everything you've learned to date can be used in harmony to solve problems and help build logical constructs. I suppose if the AP courses offered in today's high schools actually did this, I shouldn't have a problem. They are designed to, however the issue is not the material but the instruction.
Most high school math teachers stop with a Bachelor's Degree and you are quite lucky if it was earned as a math major. It took me to the level of expectation of me as a 1 year grad student to start to piece it all together. It wasn't until I was a 4th year grad student who had by that time taught 6 college courses that I realized the intelligence that goes into designing a course and its syllabus. I am not saying that every once in a while there isn't some incredible teacher who has my qualifications teaching high school. However, given the gripes about math that I hear from a general population, I would say that the majority of math teachers are ill-equipped to teach any level of math, especially the AP. If you do not understand the subject at its very core, then you cannot teach - you can lecture. By this I mean, you can stand at the board and tell a group of students what to memorize and why it kinda makes sense by what the book writes. I wish our education system would realize that which I have seen - that we are hurting not helping our youth and therefore our future.
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