This year, Lenape introduced its newest course: AP U.S. Government and Politics. Open to all grade levels and taught by Ms. Dimmig (a U.S. History I and previous World Cultures teacher), AP Gov is sure to be an exciting and rewarding experience. 

While this is the district’s first year offering the course, AP Gov has been in the works for a few years. In fact, it was students from our own school who initially started the push for this class.

To give a brief overview of AP Gov, it is a course that is designed to give students a better understanding of our government. This fundamental basis of the course is the reason Ms. Dimmig wanted to teach this class. She says, “I believe that it’s very important to offer a course like this, and I really like how its focus is being non-partisan and just teaching students how to become involved and be active citizens.” She also says that “so many adults don’t understand how our government works, and it seems to be a big barrier for a lot of people and creates a lot of apathy. And I just think it’s important, as a teacher, to be a part of creating educated citizens.”

As for Ms. Dimmig’s AP Gov class specifically, a big part of the course is the interactive activities and review games she incorporates. She says, “I like to do games on an almost daily basis. As for big ones when we have the chance to review, I love trashketball and grudge ball…those are usually my main two that students really like. I also like the flyswatter game.”

She is indeed correct about students liking the review games. As for senior Max Hann, one of his favorite things about the class is the review games (and the candy prizes). He also loves the atmosphere of the classroom, much like sophomore Tami Sukkarieh. Personally, I agree with both of them; the interactiveness of the class and the welcoming and positive environment is definitely the best part of the course. 

Along with the near-daily review games, Ms. Dimmig has a lot of ideas for class projects. She says “Some of the ideas that I have are doing a Mock Congress, doing debates on modern-day issues, and doing some kind of political engagement project where you get to research something that interests you and find out what Congress is actually doing or trying to do that applies to that issue, and maybe even doing some kind of advocacy piece with that.” But, her ideas don’t stop there. She is also “throwing around the idea of a class presidential election to go through how that process works.” Personally, these projects sound fun and exciting, and I can’t wait to see what happens!

As for what Ms. Dimmig is excited about, she says “I haven’t taught it yet but I anticipate that I’m going to really like the civil liberties unit because it’s something that I’m very passionate about. And I’m looking forward to learning more about the Supreme Court cases that have really shaped our civil liberties and how the courts interpret them.”

Overall, I believe that AP Gov has been a very rewarding and interesting class so far. It is currently one of my favorite classes at Lenape and one that I look forward to every day. Personally, I would suggest this course to any person who wants to be part of a fun and riveting class. Likewise, every person I interviewed agreed that they would (and some already have) recommend this class to a friend.

As for Ms. Dimmig, she recommends this class to “anyone who wants to be a more active citizen and understand their rights. And definitely, anyone who is open to or interested in pursuing a job in government one day, because there are so many options; there are literally millions of people that work for our federal government alone–not to mention all of the local and state governments. And honestly, anyone who is considering being a lawyer…I think this is a really good course for that.”

When the course selection forms come out for the next school year, consider taking AP Gov! It doesn’t matter what profession you might want to go into. For instance, I want to be a doctor, Max wants to be a news anchor, and Tami wants to be a lawyer, but we all have a commonality of absolutely loving this class. 

And, when you walk away from the course, Ms. Dimmig hopes that “students will have had fun learning about a topic that can be really dry.” She adds, “I think that’s why so many adults’ brains shut off when they hear about the mechanisms of government. So I hope that people will walk away feeling that they had fun, feeling like it’s been a manageable workload while still feeling challenged. And, really, I hope that I’m going to teach it in a way that the information sticks. I teach history, I get it. People don’t remember all the battles I teach about and all the details, but I do think that this is a course where it’s really important for me to make sure that people are processing and digesting as we go because this is stuff that can help you for the rest of your life. And knowing the details really does actually matter. So I hope people will remember them.”

And remember them we shall. I think I can speak for the whole class when I say that we will never forget our AP Gov memories!