a community engagement initiative of Waverly Community Unit District #6
In many schools, when only three students enroll in a class, it gets canceled. But at Waverly, when three students enrolled in Ms. Caitlin Smith’s inaugural Advanced Placement (AP) United States History class, the small class went ahead and has allowed its students to get a private school experience at a public school.
Making
History
Waverly’s First AP Cohort Tackles the Future by Studying the Past
By Devin Haas
Ms. Smith thinks that Waverly, and other rural schools in Central Illinois, are able to offer unique educational experiences by virtue of the tight-knit community that comes with using a single campus for kindergarten through 12th grade. The small class size of her AP course allows for the creation of a similarly tight-knit, personal learning experience. Bailey, Ashley, and Lucas—all in their junior year—are the course’s pioneering students, and each said that they loved the amount of one-on-one time they are able to have with the teacher thanks to the class’s small size. Each class, the three of them and Ms. Smith sit at the same discussion table. Ms. Smith brings questions to use as a starting point but lets the students guide the direction of each Socratic seminar. She says that there is “less scaffolding” for her AP class than the other history sections she teaches so that each student can create their own path in the course.
The three students excel in other subjects as well, but they think that history is important for everybody. Bailey notes that it exercises the brain in unique ways and allows her to understand how America's government and economic system are products of its past. Ashley is interested by how national history has shaped Jacksonville’s local history—especially slavery and the abolitionist movement. For Ms. Smith, history is about people and understanding how we got to where we are today, and history class gives students communication skills that set them up for success in the future, regardless of what that future is. “It isn’t necessarily all college-bound students that are pushed to take AP classes,” Ms. Smith says. “It’s for all students that are looking for a challenge and enjoy history and are interested in learning those higher-order thinking skills that aren’t necessarily as frequently taught in general education courses.”
Lucas doesn’t rule out studying political science at a college, but he is more interested in serving in the Army or Marines after high school. His grandfather fought in Vietnam, and Lucas says, “I live in this country and I feel obligated to serve it.” Ashley and Bailey are interested in going to university after high school. Ashley plays both volleyball and softball and hopes to study physical therapy at the University of Illinois-Springfield. Bailey believes it is important to challenge herself in different parts of her life, which is why she plays golf and decided to take the AP course. She is interested in studying sports business at Maryville or Illinois State University. Ms. Smith went to ISU herself, then went to London to study history education. She taught AP history in her year-long teaching internship, and while this is her first year teaching AP history at Waverly, she’s taught general history here for several years. To prepare to teach AP history this year, Ms. Smith went to the College Board’s week-long AP Summer Institute at Loyola University in Chicago. She has modeled her curricula after the College Board’s to ensure that her students are prepared to take the AP exam on May 5. While I have no doubt that all three students will excel on that exam, I am sure that the skills they learn from this class and the love of learning it inspires will stick with them for years after they finish their final Document-Based Question. After all, as their school’s first AP cohort, they are making history themselves!
It isn’t necessarily all college-bound students that are pushed to take AP classes,” Ms. Smith says. “It’s for all students that are looking for a challenge and enjoy history and are interested in learning those higher-order thinking skills
