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A couple of weeks ago, in the week of Jan 16 thread, there was a discussion of the kerfuffle re Florida refusing to offer the pilot of AP African American Studies. There were a couple of minor developments last week. First, the course description is available here
Second, Florida specified its objections here
Now, I am not a fan of most "studies" courses, because, in my limited experience, they tend to lack rigor and often push a political viewpoint, which is both a disservice to students and, to the extent that students are required to parrot that viewpoint, a First Amendment violation when the course is taught in public schools (and in private schools as well, in California). I have not looked closely at the course description for the AP class, so I don't know if it has those flaws. That being said, this decision by Florida seems to be more a part of the DeSantis for President campaign than a principled objection. That is because the course description is not a curriculum, and the course description, like all AP course descriptions, says:
I have attended several AP trainings in my day, and can attest that they make a big deal about individual teachers being given autonomy, as long as their syllabus addresses the content and skills set forth in the course description. So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.
And, btw, the claims on the other side that Florida does not want to teach African American history is also nonsense, because teaching of African American history is mandated in FL schools
Edit: PS: There is a very odd complaint in the Florida DOE's list: It objects to a reading by one author in part because, "Kelley's first book was a study of Black communists in Alabama." Not, 'an adulatory study," but merely a "study." It is like objecting to a reading by Donald Horowitz because he wrote a study of ethnic riots.
"The courses are not rigorous." Maybe true, but many courses in school are not indented to be rigorous in an academic sense per say, like art, music, PE, etc. If rigor is the sole criterion, then this would mean many other courses would have to be removed. This would imply that 'European History', which is also an AP course, may also be lacking in rigour.
"The courses are biased." But what if they were made more objective/impartial?
These objections seem to be be an attempt to divert from the actual motive /reason, being that people do not want courses which single out African Americans, although European History already exists. Maybe rebrand it as "African History", which does not exist as an AP subject? There are no good answers it seems. My own opinion is just lump all ethnicities/races into a single course(s), without any obvious preference/favoritism. I don't think it's that big if a deal.
Banish from your mind the notion that this course teaches history. I linked below to an African American Studies scholar who freely admits as much. The course is not about history. It's about "learning how to think" and "viewing things through a critical lens".
I'm really struggling to come up with anything that would be an apple to apples comparison to a course we'd be broadly familiar with. But these "XYZ Studies" degrees really are their own special thing. I can't think of a single other curriculum that isn't about teaching subject matter per say, and is instead about deconstructing, recontextualizing, or specifically countering other course work or cultural forces. Like a "math" class that attempts undermine your belief in validity mathematics.
Those are not mutually exclusive. The CA history standards, for example, include both content standards and historical thinking and analysis standards. I assume other states do as well. And AP World, AP European and AP US History all include historical analysis and thinking as purposes of the course.
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I have come to the opinion that critical is a terrible word choice (but possibly deliberately so). The different meanings of "heralded to critical acclaim", "critical decision to save the world", "in critical condition", and "overly critical diatribe" are so disparate that despite years of supposed education, I'm not sure which "critical thinking" refers to.
Naively, we should be teaching students to fairly evaluate ideas, and to make important decisions. But sometimes it seems like people lean into the criticism aspect to justify nihilism and tearing down everything without any thought to improving the human condition.
Political as well as social revolutionaries often seek to destroy and delegitimize the dominant framework because chaos and confusion are fertile soil for planting the seeds of a new framework. That's the implicit goal of efforts to "attack structural whiteness" or whatever. Once "whiteness" has been made radioactive and repellent enough, activists can offer their CRT framework as a path to redemption for those benighted souls who had been ignorant enough to use the old framework to understand the world.
You can see this strategy play out in every leftist movement since the French Revolution. It's a good one, the right seems to have no defense against it.
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