Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year at Shadow Ridge there will be a brand new class available to students called AP African American Studies. Mrs. Mason will be the teacher of this new class as well as continuing to teach 4 other subjects. She has been at Shadow for 12 years, during which she taught English 10, 11 12, AP Language and Composition, and Publications.
Mrs. Mason was the one who volunteered to teach this class and is excited that it is finally coming to the campus. She asked for it a couple of years ago, but the course was still a pilot class. In the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, AP African American Studies will be made available to all schools. When Ms. Shipp went to Mrs. Mason this year to ask if she was still interested in teaching the upcoming class, Mrs. Mason was super excited and said yes. She knows how important this class will be to both herself and her students.
“The class is important because students get to spend one year laser focused on a very specific topic in American History,” Mason says. “I think it’s also essential that students get exposed to ideas and topics that they may not encounter in traditional classes. That is the essence of education – to learn and be exposed to topics and ideas you wouldn’t normally encounter. For me it’s important because I am also learning along with the students, I’m getting exposed to material and history that I did not fully understand or wasn’t exposed to, and it’s a class that should have been offered long before now.”
The class covers the African Diaspora starting around 1400 to the current Afrofuturism. Mrs. Mason thinks that the things students will enjoy the most are gaining new knowledge about African American culture and having a class that focuses on people who have mostly been written over or dismissed. While that would be the most exciting part for students, Mrs. Mason is excited for certain parts of the class as well.
“I think it’s all exciting, but I think I am most looking forward to discussing the evolution of African American art in film and music and see how it has evolved to reflect the past, present, and future,” Mason comments.
Mrs. Mason thinks that every part of the class is exciting, but one of the best discussions will be about the evolution of African American art in film and music and how it has changed to reflect the past, present, and future.
Sophomore Kamryn Gregory is excited about this new opportunity and is interested in the topics that will be discussed.
“I think this class will be great for me because I’ll learn a lot more about topics that I never knew before,” Gregory says. “It will help me in the real world if I know all about African American history and culture.”
