History of NCHS History, Part II

 The 2000’s

As the 2000 academic year drew to a close, the department
finalized plans for some significant curricular changes for the 2001-2002 school year. These changes were to be the most sweeping in the Department’s history.

Specifically, the curriculum was be bolstered by two new advanced placement courses, one, AP United States Government and Politics, a senior elective, and the other AP World History, a freshman-sophomore offering.

Government and Politics emerged out of a concern that the curriculum needed a
specific offering to meet the needs of students who had sophisticated interests
in this area.  It was also an early step by the department toward meeting the
state’s new “Civics” requirement which was to be effective in the near future. But more than anything else this offering was due to the addition to the staff of Stephen Vehslage, who championed the need for the course, designed it from the ground up,  and ‘AP Gov’ rapidly became a ‘destination’ course for many an NCHS senior and continues to be as of this writing.

The decision to implement Advanced Placement World History was more complex.

After much deliberation and debate, the department decided to replace its
current ninth  and tenth grade honors program with this new venture to be taught over two years instead of the usual one.  While challenging to the age group, the teachers believed that there were a core of students prepared for the opportunity. There was intense opposition to the idea, but NCHS Social Studies teachers firmly believed that this was the most challenging way to go. In itself, the course and examination was an entity new to all schools.  New Canaan was being one of the” pioneers” in this area of the curriculum. Beyond the formality of a World History Advanced Placement opportunity, the course did have other implications.

Throughout its work, the department attempted to coordinate its efforts with the formal goals of the school system. The work on curriculum, student learning, and attention to standardized test scores all spoke to this effort. The emphasis on World History at the Advanced Placement level was one way of approaching the complex issue of Diversity Learning, another stated concern of the New Canaan Public Schools at the time.  It was of great interest to the department that this was not simply a European History course with a few other cultures more or less included as an addendum. There were risks in a programmatic upgrade which would place the school’s most able young students in an Advanced Placement environment usually aimed at juniors and seniors. However,
on balance, the experiment was deemed worthy of undertaking, and the results
have been extremely positive.  Among the reasons for adopting the A.P.
World History curriculum was the fact that this was a new A.P. examination, and
New Canaan High School would be among the earliest schools in the country to offer its opportunities to our students.

Second, nationwide curricular trends in history continued to move from a
decidedly western orientation to that of a more global perspective.  While
New Canaan had been moving in this direction for some ten years, the World History course as envisioned by the College Board sets a new standard for globalization.  Finally, the department believed that the school’s most able 9th and 10th grade students would beagle to work with the complex materials inherent in the course.  As such, the offering would parallel the existing Global History structure and would not have an impact on A.P. European History which remains a strong senior elective.

This would be truly a “global” experience for those students enrolled.The staff believed that this, in turn, would have a strengthening “spillover” effect on non-honors ninth and tenth grade Global History, thus providing a broader multi-cultural experience for students in their first two years of high school.  It would also be an impetus for the department to continue its work to ensure that students in the “great middle" have access to challenging and enriching curricular opportunities.

The events of September 11th, 2001, literally greeted the first year offering of AP World at NCHS. This led to an almost rabid interest in the course, as students clamored to learn more about World History. That freshman class in the inaugural year of that AP will never forget that experience. It was almost a perfect example of a two year (as AP World is a two year sequence) ‘teachable moment’, and many graduates of that class took decidedly internationalist degrees at college and there was more than a few that at least minored in Arabic.

As of Advanced Placement World History at NCHS has been taught by Jessica Browner, Marianne Cohen, Paul Phillips and Bob Stevenson.

Advanced Placement History enrollments continue to be very healthy, and results have been satisfying.  

In 2008, 143 kids took an Advanced Placement class in Social Studies. There were 11 sections of AP and 4 AP’s offered- AP World, AP European, AP Government and AP US History. The highest score a student can earn on the AP Test is a ‘5’. In the 1980’s, again, 9% of students earned this coveted score. By the 1990’s, 32% were earning a ‘5’ and by the 2000’s the average was 54%.  The national average
for a ‘5’ is usually about +/- 10%.

The average score for each AP section in Social studies has been near a ‘4 and a half’ by the 2000’s.

From  the  two teachers that taught AP in the 1980’s, today as a result of continued summer work and initiatives in taking classes  seven  teachers in Social Studies were qualified to and have taught AP at NCHS by 2008, with more coming on board to do so. This ineffect is a quadrupling of teachers able to carry an AP assignment. This is invaluable due to the fact that AP skills, assignments and expectations often carry over into other, non- AP sections taught at the high school by the same teachers.