Three new social studies classes are coming to the LOHS , including AP African American Studies , which will be taught by Katrina Levin, History of the 1960’s taught by Anthansios Michaels and History of Modern Warfare taught by Mike Noble. AP African American Studies is brand new to both LOHS and the College Board, the organization that runs AP classes. This class will focus on African Americans and their history. History teacher Katrina Levin said, “This class really complements AP, because AP does not necessarily focus on minorities. They might be in the curriculum in spots but this is a whole class about a minority in the United States that have been seriously mistreated.” Levin said, “AP African American studies starts in pre-colonial Africa and the course traces the path of African people to America and goes through the period after enslavement and enslavement, and through the modern day.”
However, AP African American Studies is an AP class, meaning that it will be fast paced compared to non AP classes and will be test heavy with one student research project in it. Levin said, “It tends to be like a traditional AP class, but it is an elective so there is a little bit of wiggle room, but it’s AP and a lot of content to cover.”
Another new class coming to LOHS is History of Modern Warfare, which has been taught by Noble in the past. The course will start out by having a brief introduction to the history of warfare, providing context for later subjects that will be studied. History of Modern Warfare will cover a broad range of subjects ranging from the rules of war to the weapons used to wage war. Noble said, “There will be a chronological part.” Noble continued, “Then it’s going to be more thematically, what we are covering.” The goal of the chronological part is to provide students with a back drop and context to future areas of study.
The class will be mainly focused on projects and have tests primarily focused on vocabulary. Noble said, “There are some tests in it, I try to go a little bit more into the project based.” Unlike AP African American Studies, this class won’t have the same rigor or intensive workload, but it still will have some homework and tests. Even so, the main focus will be around projects.
The History of the 1960’s class will be taught by Anthansios Michaels which will be a semester-long course covering the history of 1960’s and will be chronologically organized with some overarching themes, Michaels said, “will be framed chronologically but also chunked thematically.” The course will cover many events that formed American history throughout the second half of the 20th century.
The course will be very project-focused and only last a semester. Michaels said, “It will be definitely project-focused.” This course will have many different appeals to different people because the 1960’s were such a divisive time from the Vietnam war to the social changes, The course will cover Michaels said “Counterculture and the arts, Silent Majority, Vietnam War, College Campus Protest, Women’s Movement, LGBTQ+ Movement, Black, Latino and Native American movements, Political Divides, and the sixties in historical memory.”
