How an Anti-AP Teacher Learned to Enjoy Teaching an AP Class

My Jewish grandmother was still young in body and spirit when I was born. She hated being called “grandmother,” but she often warned me about using the word hate.

“That’s one of the strongest words in the English language, and you should use it only if you really mean it—and you know exactly what it means.”

As a rookie educator, knowing full well what the word meant, I wasn’t shy about expressing my hatred for Advanced Placement U.S. History, commonly known as APUSH.

I hated how preparing my students for the test privileged rote memorization and breadth over depth, sucking the joy out of learning. I hated sacrificing curiosity about cause and effect—the historian’s craft—for higher scores and better college admissions prospects.

Most of all, I hated being beholden to the College Board when I knew that I could offer my students a richer learning experience. I could stand teaching the course for only two years, even as most of my students earned 4s and 5s—whether because of me or despite me.

Making the Transition Back to AP Curriculum

After two decades away from the AP curriculum, I wasn’t thrilled when my school encouraged me to teach AP U.S. Government and Politics (often called AP GoPo) in fall 2025. I was reluctant to give up teaching my own government curriculum—especially to follow the College Board’s set framework.

To prepare, I spent a week that July at St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, taking an AP Summer Institute workshop with Rachael Ryan, a master teacher from Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. I was fortunate that my school funded the experience, and I remain grateful for that support. She helped me see that my students could excel in the course while deepening their love of learning.

“It’s just a very accessible and understandable course,” she told me when we connected recently. She credited the College Board’s Course and Exam Description, or CED, which laid out what students needed to learn and offered teachers a way to check their coverage.

Real-World Connections Give Purpose Beyond the Test

Students still had to know their stuff, including the principles, institutions, and major Supreme Court decisions that shaped the American government. That knowledge helps them make sense of the world around them, giving their learning a purpose beyond remembering the right answer on test day.

I found far more room to encourage students’ curiosity than I had in APUSH, with sufficient time to explore the content in depth. Teaching it over a full year helped—a luxury that teachers who must fit the course into a semester don’t have. When teaching about media and government, I shared stories from my days covering town hall meetings—where parking took up way too much time on the agenda—and from my ongoing writing about politics and education.

“We can so clearly use what we learn in this class to our daily lives,” one student told me. “Maybe I’ll go to a town hall meeting and share my views on issues that matter to me.”

That first year, my juniors earned an average of 4.5 on the AP exam. I was thrilled. One student even told me it was her favorite course of the year. After all my concern about what an AP curriculum might take away from learning, her reaction meant a great deal.

My experience even made me willing to reconsider APUSH. If asked to teach it again, I would give it another look, especially after the exam’s 2015 redesign, which placed greater emphasis on historical analysis and interpretations of sources. From what I’ve seen, though, even the revised APUSH favors breadth over depth, with nine chronological units. I prefer how AP GoPo, when taught as a yearlong course, offers ample time. Its five thematic units also give teachers greater flexibility to decide what to tackle and when.

5 Tips for Teaching AP GOvernment and Politics

For those teaching AP U.S. Government and Politics with reservations, here are some lessons from my first year on the job, informed by Ryan’s sage advice.

1. Give the CED a practical role in planning. During the summer institute, Ryan had me design an activity that met specific requirements in the CED. I returned to that exercise when planning my own lessons. Teachers could try this with a lesson they already enjoy teaching: Identify the content and skills it develops, then adjust it to address what is missing.

2. Find a textbook you trust. “I think it’s really helpful to have a very good textbook that you trust and believe in,” Ryan said. She favored college-level texts written by scholars and explained that CED’s organization didn’t always match how she preferred to teach. The College Board requires access to a college-level textbook but doesn’t prescribe a particular title. In my view, covering the required material still leaves room for professional judgment, especially as I teach AP GoPo in a yearlong course rather than a semester course, as many of my colleagues do.

I also enjoy assigning supplemental readings. I recently had students read Jill Lepore’s 2025 feature in The Atlantic, “How Originalism Killed the Constitution,” to reinforce the required content—including the amendment process under Article V—and facilitated debates over the role of judicial interpretation.

3. Make current events part of the learning. I used them in my instruction before teaching the AP course, but Ryan helped me make more deliberate connections. Her approach included listening to short news podcasts, then exploring the coverage more deeply. A story about presidential action could prompt students to identify the power involved, examine its constitutional basis, and consider how another branch might respond. That gave familiar terms such as checks and balances something concrete to explain.

4. Give students room to reach their own conclusions. Discussing politics requires care, especially when students might mistake an explanation for an endorsement. Ryan encouraged teachers to ground discussion in evidence and constitutional principles. Students need opportunities to examine the evidence behind a claim and explain their reasoning. The same scrutiny should apply regardless of which party holds power.

5. Prepare students for the exam while keeping its place in perspective. My first-year mentality teaching an AP course was simple: I would teach ridiculously closely to the test. I even made an “Eyes on the 5’s” poster for my classroom wall. Ryan placed less emphasis on the test itself. “I focus more on the skills and the content that I want them to have,” she said. Reflecting on our conversation, I realized I needed to take that advice more seriously.

My competitiveness had allowed the same fixation I resented when teaching APUSH to creep into my own classroom.

This fall, I plan to adjust my attitude and my curriculum, giving students more room to explore what interests them without always connecting it to a possible exam question. Maybe if I embrace more of Ryan’s approach, more students will leave saying it was their favorite course. That’s something worth working toward, whatever their scores.