Junior year means United States History, translating into, for those who either have a lot of free time or really hate themselves, AP U.S. History. Having neither enough time for the coursework nor the self-discipline to admit that to myself, I walked into the classroom on the first day of school and sat down, not having any idea of what to think of the class that everybody had something to say about.

Now, a semester in, I know exactly how I feel about taking AP US History—it is absolutely essential.

In 2014, there was a movement in Oklahoma and several other states — including my home state, Georgia— to stop teaching this class since it "portrays America negatively" by focusing on the bad parts of history. By this argument, one can assume they're only talking about slavery and subsequently, continuous racial discrimination, Native American removal and unfair treatment, the exploitation of immigrants and the working class during industrialization or the glorification of all of this supremacy (all topics covered in the first semester, which spans from roughly the "beginnings of time" to the 1890s), since this is the bulk of the class material.

Why, then, is a class that seems to just show the negative sides of my home country so important and so crucial to the education of all?

Because that is what happened. Lots of people were treated very unfairly to benefit a very small group of people.

And the modern day equivalent of that small group of people is the group that was trying to keep everybody else from learning that anything so unfortunate and unfair ever happened.

Every frustrated history student ever has thrown down their pencil and buried their head in their textbook and moaned, "Why do we even have to learn this? They're all dead anyway!" But there is a reason—America has had a lot of mess-ups, a lot of taking-advantage-of-others and a lot of well-I-can-because-I'm-better moments. Everything we learn in class has historical evidence pointing to its existence, proving that it happened, and if that makes us so ashamed that we want to ban the class, then that should show us how necessary it is to teach it!

Nobody who is sad or frustrated over the current state of America feels that way because of something that happened in the 1860s or the 1920s or even probably the 1990s. They have these emotions and thoughts that we are not living up to our Constitutional promise because of events that are continuing to happen today. They are continuities from almost every time period in history and yet, even in both our cultural supremacy and our feeling that this year, right now, should be the best and most advanced in everything that we have ever achieved, we are doing the same things and making the same mistakes that the Americans of past generations lived through.

AP US History is probably more relevant today than ever before because the issues that we discuss—even if the events in question took place before America was even America—are echoed in debates, laws and social codes today. We need this class. We need it in its raw, ugly form (we could maybe have less chapter quizzes, if Ms. Smiley happens to be reading this) and we need as much of it as we can get.

Because it's good that Oklahoma wanted to ban the curriculum. It's very good that the bill got defeated three years ago and we managed to retain freedom of education, of course, but it is still very good that such a class—a factual class with evidence backing up every lesson we learn, negative portrayal of America or not—managed to make people uncomfortable. Oh no, we don't want our kids to know we did that, felt that, and passed those laws. They really weren't nice. We really didn't do the right thing and we, as a country, are really very ashamed, so ashamed that we want everybody to just forget that it all happened.

It's good that people feel this way because it means that they acknowledge how wrong it is to exploit and treat people poorly. The next step to change is just getting everybody to see that this era is no different - the same wrongs are being committed. In forty years, there will be an APUSH chapter on the 20-teens, and the kids will have to write a synthesis paragraph, showing a continuity of this chapter's themes in another time period... and it won't be hard.

Take APUSH and teach APUSH. There is no other way to see the genuine future results of actions you haven't taken yet than to learn about history (because somebody has done the same stupid thing in the past). If it makes you uncomfortable, a little angry, frustrated and it leaves you feeling futile, good!! It should.

Take that as a cue to change it and add, finally, a chapter on progress to the future textbooks.