No. I like that we go beyond the AP curriculum in many cases. Why would I even bother coming to Andover if I’m just going to follow the same AP curriculum as I would at a local public school? The strength of Phillips Academy as an academic institution is the genius of the teachers. Taking away their power by forcing them to follow an exact curriculum that somebody else made up would take away from the strength of the academy.
- Jane Thomas ’10
No. Teachers teach better when they’re happy, enjoy the information and feel comfortable with the information. If my teacher knows very little about, say, Taft as president, and is going to teach it poorly, I’d rather my teacher tell me that she doesn’t quite understand Taft and allow me to study from the AP book myself.
- Demetrius Lalanne ’11
Although some courses like Physics 550 coincide with the AP curriculum, I do not think teachers should organize classes around the AP test because that would make both the teacher and the student less engaged. In addition, with the kinds of resources we have at Andover, to simply abide by the AP curriculum would be to not take full advantage of our opportunities, such as small class sizes for discussions and laboratory work.
- Jack You ’10
Absolutely not. Perhaps it works well to structure math and science classes around these curricula, but for English and History, for example, I would hate to sit in one of those classes knowing I was being taught exactly the same things as everyone else in the country taking those AP classes. Teachers here are often so great and inspiring, that I like the fact that they have a degree of autonomy in terms of what they teach in class - I’d hate to smother them under the AP curricula which, one, are restrictive and, two, often aren’t challenging enough to be used in classes here.
- Thurston Smalley ’11