In this day and age, schools everywhere are offering a multitude of new courses to their student body. Whether they’re core classes or electives, these courses offer students the chance to grow their knowledge on topics they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to. Here at Wakefield High School, one class is doing exactly that: AP African American Studies.
This course is an AP, or Advanced Placement, class that teaches students the history of people of African descent along with their modern-day culture using various sources and forms of media. Deja Moss, the teacher of this course at Wakefield, is very passionate about it and loves teaching it to people who want to learn more about the point of view of people of African descent.
“We are looking at a multitude of sources that present multiple perspectives of people throughout the African diaspora about certain incidents, movements and time periods and the different reactions to experiences in those times,” Moss said.
The class covers a wide variety of subjects and uses many teaching techniques to engage students. Junior Charles Case. Case enjoys how Moss takes a more in-depth approach to her teaching and because of that, he has become very passionate about the class.
“The big thing about this class that really compares is how many different interdisciplinary [things we learn],” Case said. “There’s a reason why it’s not called AP African American History because it’s actual studies so you learn art, music, poems, primary sources, secondary sources and videos.”
AP African American Studies has taught students history from a different perspective than that of a regular history class, focusing on various events from an African American point of view. It has helped students get to know themselves and those around them better. Sophomore Ky’mani Watson is taking the class and thinks that it will benefit the cultural understanding of those who take it.
“It’s very helpful. I feel like, especially if you are African American, you get more of an understanding [of different perspectives],” Watson said.
With the student body’s positive reaction to this class, there is much hope that it will continue to grow and draw in more students. With the momentum AP African American Studies is gaining, it may become available at other schools and spread its knowledge even further.
Chandra Campbell, the advisor of the Black Student Union here at Wakefield, has hope that this is just the beginning of classes that have their focus set on one topic and that there will be more to come.
“Hopefully, we will have more students take the class and we can offer several different sections,” Campbell said. “By having a consistent teacher, I think that the program can be able to grow and hopefully, we’ll have a few more sections to offer at the school.”
As more students learn about this class from students who have taken it, the goal of decreasing the stigma around the topics of the course may be achieved, and people will be encouraged to take what they learn beyond the classroom to educate others.
“I think we should motivate more people to take it, especially people outside of African American [descent]. I feel like it has [something] for everyone,” Case said.