College board wants to chop AP World History in half

[Godular]

Honestly, I have little issue with such a thing. The programs help kids prepare for the rigors of university work, and if it takes a curriculum split in order to accomplish it properly then so be it.

It...um...it doesn't...
What you need to understand is that the College Board is an arbitrary feudal monarch. Whatever the board desires, regardless of common sense...
it receives.

Heavy handed verbiage aside, the main thing I disagree with is making the pre-1450 class only pre-AP. That's it.

That 'need to understand' bit though... I'mma just go off of what I've learned by my own experience and say 'pfft'.

[Serrus]

It...um...it doesn't...
What you need to understand is that the College Board is an arbitrary feudal monarch. Whatever the board desires, regardless of common sense...
it receives.

Heavy handed verbiage aside, the main thing I disagree with is making the pre-1450 class only pre-AP. That's it.

That 'need to understand' bit though... I'mma just go off of what I've learned by my own experience and say 'pfft'.

Fair enough.

[Torrocca]

>Be College Board
>APWH teaches everything about human history from all pre-recorded society to the modern age across the entire world
>Enlightens kids on the vastness of history and all it has to offer
>Slash all that shit to turn APWH into another AP European History and APUSH combined class because fuck that noise

Main, the College Board is just amazing, innit? Gotta love them private companies dictating education standards :^)

[El Hamidah]

You ain't going to learn much about history in class anyway. As for "Eurocentrism", it's only natural for Americans and Europeans to focus on their own history.

While that might be true there's no reason why that would be preferable. You need to cover prehistory and the first civilizations at least if you want to have a well developed view of history.

Even if you view other races as your enemy you should still learn from them.

[Cedoria]

Euro-centrism is the proper version of history if you're from the US or Europe, Canada, or Australia. The claptrap that liberals push is usually a ton of nonsense. There is no need to spend so much effort to learn history from every single angle. The losers of history usually lost for a reason, they aren't worthy of study unless it is a separate course for extra credit hours or whatever.

Given Europe wouldn't have gunpowder without imports from the Eastern cultures, this post is demonstrable nonsense.

Define 'the losers of history'. If by that you mean they don't exist anymore, practically every culture in Europe is also 'loser' by definition (Gauls, Romans, traditional Celts).

[Cedoria]

You ain't going to learn much about history in class anyway. As for "Eurocentrism", it's only natural for Americans and Europeans to focus on their own history.

Everyone knows youtube and reddit is a much better place to learn history. Not to mention all the civ and Europa games. :^)

AP US history and AP Euro already exist. Cutting out this stuff from world history is detrimental to the already struggling humanities.

I did learn History in primary school from reading the Civilopedia on Civ IV, I credit it with beginning my enduring interest in the subject.

Later on I learned it properly.

[Cedoria]

I actually have little issue with this. Like it or not, Europe had a rather impressive effect on world events after that point. Is it Eurocentric to look in depth at how shit went nuts for the other continents during the age of imperialism? Is it Eurocentric to study the global ramifications of the cold war and explain what all that first/second/third world stuff actually means?

Recorded details of world events were much more scarce before the Renaissance. Seems to me a good splitting point.

But you can't really 'get' European history by starting at that date. How do you understand the Renaissance without understanding the Dark Ages before it? How can you get the role and importance of Catholicism without understanding the link with the Roman Empire? You can't do this stuff in a vacuum.

[Cedoria]

What could do that for you

Pretty much any other course which teaches you usable skills to apply to a job field.

Anybody whose done ANY historical research is learning usable skills.

You don't think learning research skills, how to evaluate documents, how to interpret different sources and all that other stuff is useful? You've never been in any profession in any office building. You need ALL that stuff, history can teach you how to do it. Most of the humanities do.

[Rashidi Jabal Shammar]

But you can't really 'get' European history by starting at that date. How do you understand the Renaissance without understanding the Dark Ages before it? How can you get the role and importance of Catholicism without understanding the link with the Roman Empire? You can't do this stuff in a vacuum.

But you can't really 'get' the Dark Ages without understanding the Fall of the Roman Empire. How can you get the role and importance of the Roman Empire without understanding the link with the Roman Republic? Et cetera until the stone ages.

[Cedoria]

Pretty much any other course which teaches you usable skills to apply to a job field.

Pretty good that my history studies have taught me to use sources properly, cross-reference stuff, learn how past events influence present ones, and a shit ton of valuable historical knowledge.

Sure, I've also been through geography studies, but in my current work - in the field of regional planning in an urban region - I can barely imagine a day where I won't use what I've learnt in history at least once. I can't even imagine how we'd cope with street and urban network layouts and projects without having a precise view of how the city I work in grew from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Dismissing history on the basis of "it doesn't learn usable job skills" is pretty weak, first because it's simply not true, and second because you don't study only for that. Unless you want to throw philosophy, sociology, most of economics, astrophysics, non-applied geography, art history...out of the window, because knowledge is overrated anyway.

I mean based on this, you can pretty much dismiss anything that has something to do with fundamental research and doesn't have a direct practical application.

The mere fact that you can't DO direct practical application without somebody having done the fundamental research should show the lie there.

[Cedoria]

Who pays for the studies?

Academic journal contacts you about writing a specific topic. You send an article in and receive a small fee for your troubles.

Granted, not all journals pay the people who contribute to their articles, but it's not unheard of.

You can get grants from academic societies, private organisations, and institutes for doing research.

Historians could make a profit if they choose to specialize in some field with practical uses that can go with their degree, ie museum curation, archaeology, or education. Just having a history degree on its own is not very advantageous.

The skills you learn in doing the degree are. Very flexible and easily transferable to lots of different kinds of work.

[Saiwania]

Define 'the losers of history'. If by that you mean they don't exist anymore, practically every culture in Europe is also 'loser' by definition (Gauls, Romans, traditional Celts).

If a civilization was conquered and never managed to overthrow their invaders or recover. An example being native Americans. No one should care about their history as opposed to that of the British, French, Spanish, etc. colonialism that took over and the organized sovereign states that formed as a consequence later on.

If teaching Australian history for example, the Aborigines aren't of any importance with regards to the formation of Australia as a sovereign nation. So they lived off the land but never progressed to a truly organized and effective nation state, great accomplishment.

I most admire the peoples who developed the best technology and used it to conquer to build empires or extract resources to create even more progress and material well being.

[Torrocca]

Define 'the losers of history'. If by that you mean they don't exist anymore, practically every culture in Europe is also 'loser' by definition (Gauls, Romans, traditional Celts).

If a civilization was conquered and never managed to overthrow their invaders or recover. An example being native Americans. No one should care about their history as opposed to that of the British, French, Spanish, etc. colonialism that took over and the organized sovereign states that formed as a consequence later on.

>Implying there's nothing of value to learn from conquered civilizations

wew laddie that's a hot take, guess we have nothing to learn from the Romans then.

If teaching Australian history for example, the Aborigines aren't of any importance with regards to the formation of Australia as a sovereign nation. So they lived off the land but never progressed to a truly organized and effective nation state, great accomplishment.

Because all the racial and social issues stemming from conflict with Aborigines and colonizers has no effect on Australia's formation as a nation. Riiight.

[Conserative Morality]

But you can't really 'get' the Dark Ages without understanding the Fall of the Roman Empire. How can you get the role and importance of the Roman Empire without understanding the link with the Roman Republic? Et cetera until the stone ages.

Not really. The link with the Roman Republic is about as far back as you need to go.

[Conserative Morality]

If a civilization was conquered and never managed to overthrow their invaders or recover. An example being native Americans. No one should care about their history as opposed to that of the British, French, Spanish, etc. colonialism that took over and the organized sovereign states that formed as a consequence later on.

>Implying there's nothing of value to learn from conquered civilizations

wew laddie that's a hot take, guess we have nothing to learn from the Romans then.

If teaching Australian history for example, the Aborigines aren't of any importance with regards to the formation of Australia as a sovereign nation. So they lived off the land but never progressed to a truly organized and effective nation state, great accomplishment.

Because all the racial and social issues stemming from conflict with Aborigines and colonizers has no effect on Australia's formation as a nation. Riiight.

Only white people matter, remember?

[Torrocca]

>Implying there's nothing of value to learn from conquered civilizations

wew laddie that's a hot take, guess we have nothing to learn from the Romans then.



Because all the racial and social issues stemming from conflict with Aborigines and colonizers has no effect on Australia's formation as a nation. Riiight.

Only white people matter, remember?

*Sniffs air*

Do I smell... COLOREDS MIXING WITH MY WHITES?!?!?! /s

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Only white people matter, remember?

*Sniffs air*

Do I smell... COLOREDS MIXING WITH MY WHITES?!?!?! /s

Can we ignore the history of the Confederates and Nazis now?

[Rashidi Jabal Shammar]

But you can't really 'get' the Dark Ages without understanding the Fall of the Roman Empire. How can you get the role and importance of the Roman Empire without understanding the link with the Roman Republic? Et cetera until the stone ages.

Not really. The link with the Roman Republic is about as far back as you need to go.

But how can you understand the Roman Republic without the Greeks or Etruscan monarchs?

[Conserative Morality]

But how can you understand the Roman Republic without the Greeks or Etruscan monarchs?

Very easily.

I mean that fairly seriously. The Republic's development took it very far from its Etruscan influences, and most Greek influence came by by the Mid-Republic. The Roman Republic is where Western history starts.

[Cedoria]

Define 'the losers of history'. If by that you mean they don't exist anymore, practically every culture in Europe is also 'loser' by definition (Gauls, Romans, traditional Celts).

If a civilization was conquered and never managed to overthrow their invaders or recover. An example being native Americans. No one should care about their history as opposed to that of the British, French, Spanish, etc. colonialism that took over and the organized sovereign states that formed as a consequence later on.

If teaching Australian history for example, the Aborigines aren't of any importance with regards to the formation of Australia as a sovereign nation. So they lived off the land but never progressed to a truly organized and effective nation state, great accomplishment.

I most admire the peoples who developed the best technology and used it to conquer to build empires or extract resources to create even more progress and material well being.

You've clearly never done an Australian history course... They are a very large portion of many subjects in Australian History. I know, I did them all.


And if you think the colonisers issues with Aboriginal Australians was NOT significant to the formation of it as a nation, well, you should have done more history classes covering it. Because they WERE significant, whatever you might think.


Maybe you think it's not important or of scholarly value, but the fact that is that you're inaccurate, and fortunately I think, you aren't running history programs.


Building Empires and extracting resources tend to take value from elsewhere to add it somewhere else. Its exploitative, not really an achievement unless you're lucky enough to be on the winning end. Luck, that's really it.

Also, the Indigenous Australians were NOT completely nomadic. Depending on where they lived, many did build permanent structures that they returned to periodically over the seasons, and they had political groupings. Nation-states in general were not formed until the 1700s, so by your standard, any history before that is useless.

[Cedoria]

But you can't really 'get' the Dark Ages without understanding the Fall of the Roman Empire. How can you get the role and importance of the Roman Empire without understanding the link with the Roman Republic? Et cetera until the stone ages.

Not really. The link with the Roman Republic is about as far back as you need to go.

Pretty much. Some mention of the Etruscans helps if you are talking about early Roman religion (Pagan gods, etc) and some cultural practices (gladiator games). But they're not relevant to Rome's Christian later period that is the link between the Late Empire and the Dark Ages and the rest of European history. They could be mentioned in the context of the early Republic, but there's not much need to do more than that.

[Krasny-Volny]

Academic journal contacts you about writing a specific topic. You send an article in and receive a small fee for your troubles.

Granted, not all journals pay the people who contribute to their articles, but it's not unheard of.

You can get grants from academic societies, private organisations, and institutes for doing research.

Historians could make a profit if they choose to specialize in some field with practical uses that can go with their degree, ie museum curation, archaeology, or education. Just having a history degree on its own is not very advantageous.

The skills you learn in doing the degree are. Very flexible and easily transferable to lots of different kinds of work.

The same could be said for any degree.

[Ifreann]

*Sniffs air*

Do I smell... COLOREDS MIXING WITH MY WHITES?!?!?! /s

Can we ignore the history of the Confederates and Nazis now?

I'm sure that Saiwania will agree that there is nothing of value to learn from those losers of history.

[Serrus]

Define 'the losers of history'. If by that you mean they don't exist anymore, practically every culture in Europe is also 'loser' by definition (Gauls, Romans, traditional Celts).

If a civilization was conquered and never managed to overthrow their invaders or recover. An example being native Americans. No one should care about their history as opposed to that of the British, French, Spanish, etc. colonialism that took over and the organized sovereign states that formed as a consequence later on.

If teaching Australian history for example, the Aborigines aren't of any importance with regards to the formation of Australia as a sovereign nation. So they lived off the land but never progressed to a truly organized and effective nation state, great accomplishment.

I most admire the peoples who developed the best technology and used it to conquer to build empires or extract resources to create even more progress and material well being.

You...umm...you seemed to have dropped this, most esteemed College Board member:

/s

>Be College Board
>APWH teaches everything about human history from all pre-recorded society to the modern age across the entire world
>Enlightens kids on the vastness of history and all it has to offer
>Slash all that shit to turn APWH into another AP European History and APUSH combined class because fuck that noise

Main, the College Board is just amazing, innit? Gotta love them private companies dictating education standards :^)

Pretty frickin' much.

[Godular]

I actually have little issue with this. Like it or not, Europe had a rather impressive effect on world events after that point. Is it Eurocentric to look in depth at how shit went nuts for the other continents during the age of imperialism? Is it Eurocentric to study the global ramifications of the cold war and explain what all that first/second/third world stuff actually means?

Recorded details of world events were much more scarce before the Renaissance. Seems to me a good splitting point.

But you can't really 'get' European history by starting at that date. How do you understand the Renaissance without understanding the Dark Ages before it? How can you get the role and importance of Catholicism without understanding the link with the Roman Empire? You can't do this stuff in a vacuum.

I'll take 'prerequisites' for a thousand, Alex.