I don't know at what point AP U.S. history became APUSH. Back in my day, in 2003, we called it USAP and we liked it.

The college-level high school class was taught by Dr. Orson Cook, a professorial academic at Houston's St. John's School who bestowed such lifelong lessons as, and I'm paraphrasing, "shut up" and "do the reading."

The College Board-developed and nationally used USAP, as it was taught to me, filled in the gaps of U.S. history in a society that seems to treat our past as a movie that opens with the Revolutionary War and features World War II as the exciting climax where the good guys beat the bad guys. Even so-called history buffs often fill their bookshelves with little more than presidential biographies. Imagine if someone in the year 2114 tried to learn about our time by reading a biography of President Obama. That 22nd century man would miss an awful lot.

History is written by the winners, and the USAP, which was in the State Board of Education's ideological crosshairs last week for what the curriculum was "missing," took a distinct effort to focus on the reality behind the popular headlines of history. The year began with a book on colonial women and closed with an extensive research paper in which students could choose a topic from a designated period of U.S. history. Mine was about media reaction to the nuclear event at Three Mile Island.

The topic of that paper wasn't the real value. Rather, the paper stood as the culmination of a year focused on learning how to do research. Every week we spent time looking at primary documents and discussing our interpretations. Lectures didn't merely reiterate narratives or spoon-feed us dates - though every Friday did include an in-class essay on a random topic from the past week. Instead, we were driven to question explanations, argue with each other and look beyond the easy answers. It was a class whose curriculum demanded depth as well as breadth. After all, history is a method, not a list of facts.

Sometimes that meant sacrificing topics where popularity eclipsed value - we never really touched on the battles of World War II. Instead, the bulk of the year focused on the formative moments in American history that get overlooked and don't lend themselves to Steven Spielberg movies. Pre-revolutionary life, the Second Great Awakening, the Jacksonian Era, the lives of slaves, women and Indians, the circumstances that led to the Civil War and, most important, the Gilded Age. These are the sort of moments that form the foundation of American history, buried out of sight under the piles of pop-culture history media that are created and consumed en masse.

At the State Board of Education, it seems like folks want to force-feed students those sorts of academic empty calories. People have lined up to testify in outrage that students won't learn about topics that already saturate our daily lives. Some were perplexed that the AP agenda doesn't specifically address the men who defended the Alamo. The Battle of the Alamo is a great story and significant event, but its most important role is that of a symbol. Our state touts that symbol consistently, from museums to movies. But we don't have a museum about Dorthea Dix. There isn't a blockbuster movie about the religious differences among the original colonies. History is more than great men and war.

One memory always comes to mind when I think about USAP. During one of the first class discussions, Dr. Cook challenged us with a prompt about whether George Washington was overrated as a president. After all, what strong moves did he make as the chief executive? What were his great accomplishments as president? Is it possible that our nation praises a man who did the bare minimum?

Exactly. As president, Washington was universally revered. The leader of our revolution could have been king - the American version of Oliver Cromwell. But instead Washington practiced restraint, encouraged balance and stepped down after two terms.

Perhaps our SBOE could learn a lesson from Washington about the proper role of government.

Mintz is member of the Houston Chronicle editorial board.