Over the past decade, the Poly history curriculum has shifted away from traditional courses in favor of a more focused approach to civic education and diverse historical perspectives. The 2010 history curriculum included AP courses, a required sophomore-year course in World History, and a required junior-year course in American History. Today, Poly’s curriculum emphasizes civic education and more diverse classes like Native American History, History of Gender and Sexuality, and African American history. This evolution reflects broader trends in American education as schools across the country adapt to growing calls for more inclusive and relevant approaches to teaching history.
At a time of change and uncertainty about the future of history education following the 2024 election, it is useful to examine how Poly’s history curriculum has evolved over the past decade and the reasoning behind these changes.
In 2014, the Poly curriculum included few electives, only one AP course for juniors, and three AP courses for seniors. Some of Poly’s electives focused on specific topics or areas of study, including the History of Women in the U.S., Politics, Violence in Africa, and The History of the Middle East.
While the electives allowed for a deeper exploration of specific topics, Denzel Monroe, a 2014 graduate, recalls that the core history classes were broader in focus. He explains, “[history classes] were general courses about New York State and major global eras… [They were] not specific.”
About five years ago, a group of students motivated to propose improvements to the history curriculum decided to speak with Assistant Head of School, Academics Michal Hershkovitz, the chair of the History Department at the time, in hopes of inspiring change. “Some of our African American students came into the office and said, ‘We know you’re doing your best. We know you’re using a textbook that very much acknowledges underrepresented voices in American history, but it’s not enough. We want a course that centers on African Americans. We want a course that centers the Black experience in America,’ and I remember this as if it were yesterday, and feeling so concerned that we had done them a disservice,” Hershkovitz recalled.
This conversation led to some major changes to the curriculum, including the 11th-grade full-year US history requirement. Maggie Moslander, the former chair of the History Department, elaborates, “The class was really different depending on the teacher that you had. I thought that it would be of value to students to offer U.S. history courses that were really explicit and transparent about the lens [through] which they were approaching history from. So a big change that occurred when I was chair of the department was that we moved away from just a single junior year course to a whole bunch of U.S. History seminars that all had sort of a different lens on U.S. history.” These elective classes became the foundation of Poly’s changed approach to history education and began its emphasis on the specialized courses central to the curriculum today.
Moslander saw this shift as giving students a chance to choose what they want to learn, “We [the History Department] wanted to give students the options to take courses that they were really genuinely interested in, and to learn about topics that students had never heard of but might have been curious about.”
With the introduction of new electives, students and faculty began to raise concerns about the necessity of AP classes. Moslander, who taught several of these courses, describes, “[AP’s] weren’t really inviting students to dive into the foundations of American politics… And I think the format, in and of itself, didn’t really invite students to think deeply or to question or to read deeply.” In 2022, Poly eliminated APs from the curriculum entirely. This left a gap wherein no classes focused specifically on American Politics, a gap that would largely remain until two years later when the department introduced a mandatory civics course at Poly.
Although the civics course was formally introduced in 2024, the idea had been circulating for some time. The lack of political understanding among students had been an issue of increasing frequency and intensity, particularly as educators and teachers began to note significant gaps in their students’ knowledge of the basic concepts and principles of government. Elijah Sivin, director of service learning and history faculty, helped lead this change in curriculum. He explains, “We started to realize that kids couldn’t do things like explain the Electoral College right, that kids were not really clear about the meaning of the terms Democrat and Republican, that kids were not clear about the three branches of government. And we felt it was important to remedy that.” From these concerns, the civics course was born. According to Civx Now, “Civics is the lifelong process that makes people into informed and engaged members of their communities—which range from schools and towns or neighborhoods to the whole nation and even the world.”
For the Poly History Department, however, civics wasn’t just about filling a gap in knowledge but equipping students with the tools to critically evaluate the world around them. “My hope is that students will both understand the institutions and the norms under which we currently live… it’s important that we give students a solid, deep, robust foundation in American government and society so that they can imagine a better way forward. You can’t fix anything if you don’t understand how it works… I want our students to go out into the world. I want you to imagine a future that’s better than today,” Hershkovitz remarked.
According to the Pew Research Center, today Republicans and Democrats are farther apart ideologically than at any time in the past 50 years. The Poly History Department hopes that the curriculum will remain unbiased and not further division. “What I hope we do better than the country is doing is listen to one another. Have real discourse, neither too polite nor too rancorous. Real discourse, respectful discourse that is grounded in fact and evidence not just an emotion,” Hershkovitz explains. The department is still dedicated to creating an atmosphere where critical thinking and open-mindedness are encouraged, enabling students to interact positively when confronted with opposing ideas.
History courses at Poly will continue to be dynamic and adaptable, evolving to meet the changing needs of the student body. Virginia Dillon, the current head of the History Department, addresses the future of the curriculum, “It’s about the needs of the students… I think one of the nice things about the discipline of history is that it changes all the time. New histories are written all the time, and new questions are being posed and asked, and I think we will continue to be responsive to that. I think one of the great strengths of this department is that we have a lot of people who love history. We seek to improve how we teach it while also really connecting it with the students… We want to make sure the students feel the importance and power of the subject.”
