The 95 Theses

(of AP Euro)

Posted April 18, AD 2018

1. It has been 500 years exactly since Martin Luther published his 95 theses and we aren’t recognizing this holiday
2. Movies about Martin Luther suck
3. Most movies about the Renaissance suck
4. The Renaissance is boring as heck
5. It is really hard to take notes over the Renaissance without falling asleep
6. History should resemble Game of Thrones more
7. If history followed the exact plot of Game of Thrones I’d actually have an A in this class
8. If history was Game of Thrones that’d mean that Jon Snow would be long dead and I can’t handle that
9. Learning history is only actually interesting 15% of the time
10. AP Euro tests pull questions from practice exams in the review books
11. Writing 95 issues we have with this class is way too easy
12. The review books go out of order compared to the textbook
13. This makes trying to review hell because you end up reviewing stuff you don’t need to actually know yet
14. Review books cost money and that’s not fair
15. You basically end up paying for your grade
16. Students have a wide variety of background knowledge so the class is different for everyone
17. AP Euro covers some subject matter unrelated to most of our lives.
18. The AP test does not count the interesting people, such as Henry VIII and his relationships, as “important.”
19. Focusing on European history is racist.
20. While defenestration is one of the most important concepts in European history, it is not counted as a vocabulary word.
21. The teachers believe that “extra credit is for wussies.”
22. However, extra credit is a great thing, according to nearly all students.
23. Many people, such as Erasmus, are taught contradictorily.
24. Erasmus, for one, was taught as pro-Catholic during the Renaissance, but as a reformer during the Reformation.
25. All of the biggest wars in the first quarter take way too long (30 years, 100 years).
26. The textbook is very heavy.
27. I actually hurt my back muscles trying to lift my backpack on an all block day, primarily because of that textbook
28. There isn’t a TV version of the class to follow along.
29. The textbook is not comic sans
30. The textbook contains a lot of unnecessary information.
31. I cannot figure out how to get #29 unhighlighted
32. We don’t get to watch movies with important information like Monty Python
33. Monty Python is all we need to know about pre-renaissance European history
34. Monty Python is a more interesting version of European history
35. There should’ve been more killer bunnies in history
36. The textbook begins on chapter 11 instead of chapter one
37. Dragons don’t exist in recent European history
38. History does not have enough dragons
39. Peter the Great is too tall
40. People back in the day were really stupid
41. The only reason Europeans dominate the world is because they live with pigs and cows
42. The heliocentric model is inaccurate because the Earth is actually flat in case you wondering 😉
43. Newton makes me jealous of how smart he is
44. Copernicus is a wimp because he hid his findings until he almost died
45. Or was he just super smart?
46. That would’ve been a better debate than debating Columbus
47. The European people never knew true republican democracy until the 1700s.
48. Tom Richey is a god and should be treated as such
49. The so called enlightened French thinkers just stole English ideas
50. Louis XIV was the most petty person when it comes to nobles
51. Napoleon is too short to be a leader
52. Peter the great is almost 2 feet taller than Napoleon
53. Napoleon Dynamite is better than Napoleon Bonaparte
54. Mr. Besler doesn’t give us class time to watch the movie list
55. For instance, Mr. Besler wants us to watch all three Mighty Ducks movies, a noble pursuit, but doesn’t give class time to do so
56. In nearly all of European history, no one knew what comic sans was and that’s a sin
57. In the renaissance the pope was poop
58. All of the people we learn about just had traumatic experiences as children
59. Middle Ages artists were incompetent
60. Historical figures never ate McDonalds nuggets? Or Chick-fil-A? Or probably any nuggets at all?
61. Notes alter the sleep cycles of procrastinators
62. No one can actually empathize with the people of the Middle Ages
63. Why aren’t we taking AP World? It’s more common
64. AP Euro is a class meant for seniors but we are taking it as sophomores
65. AP Euro so hard but APUSH is way easier
66. The difficulty of classes should build as the year goes not go out of order like we go
67. We should pay way more attention to Voltaire than we do
68. Voltaire is such a boss
69. There are not nearly enough memes in Euro
70. MEMES WITH IMPACT FONT DO NOT COUNT FOR GOD’S SAKE
71. Rage comics definitely do not count either
72. There are way too many repeated names in Euro
73. We should have spent more time on Elizabeth I’s and Mary Stuart’s rivalry because that’s very interesting
74. Plus there’s a TV show about it too (not historically accurate but a show nonetheless)
75. We’ve ignored Scotland and Ireland completely so far
76. How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman? ((answer at the end))
77. WHY THE FRICK FRACK IS EVERYONE IN FRANCE HENRY OR LOUIS
78. French vocab words are ridiculously hard to pronounce
79. DBQs are strEssfull!!!
80. Luther was seen as a radical
81. Despite this, he was still really traditional in most beliefs
82. He valued the rich’s support over the poor and that’s not cool
83. He also said that Copernicus was crazy
84. AP Euro requires so much time outside of school
85. For those who put a lot of effort into this class, wecan sometimes be seen as antisocial especially before tests because we’re always working on something for it
86. Reading primary sources is really difficult because they rarely just say what they mean
87. Stem questions are the worst™
88. What makes Stem difficult is that you can read the passage and understand the passage itself but Stem questions are more related to the context of the source, not the source itself
89. AP Euro doesn’t have enough dogs
90. We need historical dogs
91. We haven’t learned about a single dog this year so far and that is a travesty
92. AP Euro could use some more cats too actually
93. Gustavus Adolphus is the coolest dudebro around
94. He has hella awesome facial hair too
95. To summarize, as students we want you to know how we feel about this class. While I think we can all agree that some of the information is a bit dry, some of it, like many of the facts above, are actually kinda cool and help  make the class interesting. We understand that this class is preparing us college and we appreciate you guys trying to work with a bunch of ungrateful sophomores who don’t see the effort you put into us to makes us successful. So, thank you.

signed,

     Martin Luther

((it takes 0 potatoes to kill an irishman))

       ((because the Irish potato famine))