What if you woke up one day, went to school, walked into your AP World History class, saw a poster of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and wondered “What in the world is that?”

Or maybe it is not a pyramid and instead an image of a Roman cross. You may not have a single idea of when it came about or where it originated from. Beginning next school year, the curriculum for College Board AP World History is undergoing a massive change. Many of the aforementioned topics will no longer be covered in your AP World History class.

Current AP World teacher Julie Abrahams best summarized the changes, “They are cutting out 8,000 years of history,” she said. “The College Board has divided up AP World History into periods. Their new starting point isn’t the beginning of a period, it’s in the middle of one of them.” Furthermore, Ms. Abrahams said, “They won’t test before 1200 (common era), but you still have to cover some of that for to 1200 to make sense.”

For instance, The Crusades, a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims between the 11th and 13th centuries, would only partially be covered. Under the new curriculum, learning about some major events in history would be like trying to bake a cake without flour and sugar.

Cutting out 8,000 years of history may seem like a terrible idea, but Abrahams doesn’t mind the change, except for one condition.

“If we would start at the beginning of period three at 600 (CE)  and get 600 years back I would be completely for the change,” she said.

Students, on the other hand, may be more open to the new curriculum. Sophomore Aria Ashoury welcomes the change.

“I think it’s fine,” he said. “There is too much information already in that class and not enough of that is needed in our future.”

He also felt that although gaps in history may occur, it is not such a big deal to correct them.

We will soon uncover if the new changes will negatively affect the standard for AP World education. With that being said, maybe Attila the Hun and Alexander the Great won’t return to their former glory and punish College Board for removing them from the textbooks.