The saying goes “you can’t change history.” However, the College Board has moved to change the way it is taught for the 2014-2015 school year. They have changed the curriculum for Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) courses.

The course has been reorganized into seven larger themes: identity, work, exchange and technology, peopling, politics and power, America in the world, environment and geography-physical and human, and ideas, belief and power. Like the college courses the AP curriculum mirrors, the themes were created to “[help] students to recognize broad trends and processes that have emerged over centuries in what has become the United States,” according to the College Board’s new course and exam description.

However, the new curriculum changes received mixed opinions from the Staples community.

“I’m actually a little disappointed,” APUSH teacher Daniel Heaphy said. “They did far more work to the test than to the material.  I felt as if they just moved things around.”

Similarly, Everett Sussman ’15, who took the class his sophomore year, believes the changes weren’t necessarily imperative.

“I was happy with the course when I took it, but I guess a greater focus on the ‘big picture’ is always helpful,” Sussman said.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Bennewitz ’15 who also took the class her sophomore year, thinks the new changes will be beneficial.

“I think that the details of American history are very interesting, but I almost wish that it was this way when I took the class,” Bennewitz said.