AP U.S. History, or APUSH, teaches about every piece of history of the U.S.? What a concept! But it is that curriculum that has states “pushing” APUSH out the door. 

States like Georgia and Oklahoma are in the midst of altering or banning the current APUSH class, creating proposals for new curriculum next year. Although both states are miles away, the reasoning behind the controversy has left some LZHS people discontent.

“I wrote an open letter and posted it on Facebook,” Logan Ejupi, senior and previous APUSH student, said. “I was trying to portray my frustration that they were trying to ban this class because it meant a lot to me. I enjoyed the class a lot, and I believe their accusations of lack of patriotism were false. I was more frustrated than anything.”

Although Ejupi has already taken this junior-year class, and any future changes will not affect him, banning this class or altering it to only teaching events that make America look good does not satisfy him. Ejupi’s irritation comes from the argument that those states are making to justify their issues with the curriculum.

“One of the reasons they talked about was the emphasis on unpatriotic events and the overall light which it casts on the history of the country,” Ejupi said. “They want to push under the rug the negative parts of history. I think that we need to acknowledge the parts of history that are good and the parts that are bad because if we pretend the parts that are bad never happened, we won’t learn from them. It’s important to acknowledge mistakes that we made so we don’t make them again.”

One of the events targeted usually studied by the class is the Civil War, which separated the States. Others include the Trail of Tears and the interment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII. Since these show the darker side of American history, educators see the class as unpatriotic.

“The states that are having problems with [the College Board’s changes] don’t like the changes that have been implemented to the curriculum,” David Voss, nine-year APUSH teacher, said. “They feel it removes ‘American exceptionalism’ out of the class. From what I read, they feel the class focus is more on negative American history as opposed to American ‘exceptionalism.’ I disagree. I think the new curriculum makes it more flexible for teachers to use whatever they want to use in history, and yes, there are negative parts to our history. It makes it more accurate and realistic for our students to really understand who we are, where we’ve been, and where we’ve come from, to fully understand the pros and cons. We learn from our cons to make sure we don’t make mistakes again.”

Voss does not believe Southern states will create enough push in Illinois to make a change here because it is mainly political, according to him. But without teaching the other half of history, Voss feels as if his teaching is untrue and lacking.

“A lot of the content is similar to other history, it just differs in the depth we go into,” Voss said. “If it were changed to how Oklahoma and Georgia are looking at, I would be teaching an inaccurate or incomplete version of history than what I feel is appropriate. If there was a push to change it, I would be resistant to the proposed changes. I would rather keep it where it is today.”