Nickolas Hironao Harris

College Board launched AP Business with Personal Finance nationally in 2026–27, which makes my students and me part of the very first class to go through it. Nobody has old exams to study from, and every unit is new to all of us.

The course covers how businesses work, from starting one to marketing, financing, and running it. It also covers the money skills every adult needs and almost nobody is taught in school, like budgeting, credit, saving, investing, and managing risk. I spent a year at PwC before I ever taught, and this is the class I wish I had taken first.

I have taught economics in some form since 2011: as an elective in Bahrain, a mixed-grade course in Korea built mostly on AP materials, and IB Economics in Riyadh. This year I teach both AP courses for the first time.

IB taught me to push students to weigh evidence and defend a judgment. AP rewards using the models precisely and consistently, and its clear rubrics let me give feedback within days. This year I want both from my students.

An elective where eighth graders learn to research, negotiate, and speak in committee. The unit running right now is a Roman crisis simulation I built for this class.

After teaching economics as an elective in Bahrain and Korea, I taught it as a Diploma Programme subject in Riyadh. I recorded review lectures and built browser games so students could test the models themselves.

I had taught psychology as an elective for four years before taking on the AP course. It is a demanding college-level class, and I wanted it to be fun anyway. Here is how my first cohort did in 2023.

The only AP course without a final exam. Students write a 5,000-word paper on a question of their own and defend it in a 15 to 20 minute presentation. Topics have ranged from biology to literature. I taught more than thirty students through 2023, with an average score above 4.1.

A mixed-grade course covering finance, business, micro, and macro. I taught it for five years at KISJ and now teach it at AST. The final project asks students to set income tax rates for a made-up country called Nation X. Some cut taxes for the rich, some for the poor, and the good ones back their choice with real evidence either way.

Psychology ran in four units, from the biology of the brain to the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments. In Debate, the assignment students remember is Pecha Kucha: slides change every 20 seconds whether you're ready or not, so you have to talk to the room instead of reading. Each semester also included two full MUN simulations.

The school was new, so I wrote most of the grade 9 program: four units built around essential questions and AERO standards. We replaced a lot of sit-down exams with projects like Timevine, where students taught history in six-second videos, and Columbus Court, where they put Christopher Columbus on trial.