Three Quarters Later - How is your 6th grader doing in Algebra 1 HN
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Anonymous
The question is in the title 
How is your student doing and how do you feel about it now? Both bragging and complaining are welcome 
I’ll start - it was a very rocky start in terms of instruction, but then the teacher found a good routine and students seem to be thriving and many have an A grade at this point. |
Anonymous
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I saw this thread in Recent Topics. My kid did Alg 1 in 6th grade in MCPS, and it was very easy. She's now in 10th grade doing AP Calc BC.
I am glad AAP is offering it officially, because in MCPS, it's not a publicly disclosed pathway, so parents in the know have to request it of the middle school math coordinator and the kid usually needs to test into it. Some math coordinators deliberately gatekeep, some don't. It makes for a unequal access, which is not good. |
Anonymous
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So, how far beyond Calculus does your student need to be?
They will complete Calculus in 10th grade. You have set this up. And then what? And why? And why so young? |
Anonymous
PP above you. For my kid, it's because she was perenially bored in class. Math is the one topic where kids can advance quickly. She can't skip an English class, or a Social Studies class. I think Honors Pre-calc is the year she stopped reading in math class, because otherwise she couldn't quite follow the teacher. This year, she still reads in every other class, even APUSH. Also, she rather likes math. She will do multivariable in 11th and whatever extra math is available in 12th. The point isn't advancement per se. It's making my daughter feel like school can be interesting. |
Anonymous
Why can’t kids accelerate in other content areas? Who is stopping parents? Why is it just math? Why can’t kids take HS History classes early? Why not Biology or Environmental Science? Why can’t a 6th grader take English 9? Inquiring minds want to know. |
Anonymous
There is talk of pushing honors biology to 8th grade. |
Anonymous
There are questions to ask the principal or the school board. |
Anonymous
My guess is it's easy to see if your kid's math is insufficiently challenging, but not as easy to see if the English is the same - after all, your advanced kid can just stretch themself by writing a better essay. |
Anonymous
1. One argument is that it's unnecessary. Kids can more deeply engage with the material in their grade level class, do better projects, write stronger essays, etc. I'm not sure that this is true in practice, but a lot of teachers would argue that they could challenge advanced kids adequately with some in-class differentiation. In math, whether the kid already knows the content is pretty cut and dried. 2. The subject matter covered in advanced English and History classes may be age inappropriate for younger kids. I don't see any reason why parents couldn't or shouldn't lobby schools for accelerated English and History content. In the past, kids who were advanced were skipped ahead multiple grade levels in school. The schools have not figured out how to adequately handle kids who are no longer being grade level skipped, but still need deeper instruction. |
Anonymous
AAP teacher here. I have kids who have scored on 9th grade level but their writing was on grade level or below and that is where my focus was with them. While I have many kids who are strong readers and writers they can always improve. Very few of my 6th graders get 4s all year in LA. With Benchmark, a lot of the readings are challenging. For SS, it is very easy for me to add depth and complexity to the SS curriculum but it is important they get basic background knowledge before high school. |
Anonymous
Another AAP teacher here who has taught at ES, MS, HS. I’d give more detail, but don’t want to totally out myself. I agree with the AAP teacher above — teaching truly gifted kids means going deeper, not faster. In FCPS’ race to shove kids into AAP (what they count as the state mandated gifted program) and into math acceleration, they have lost the focus on depth. The AAP extended standards were supposed to create that depth in science, social studies, and LA. That depth generally happens in the AAP MS courses (not honors, which is now just regular with very little depth), but it does not really happen in many of the ES AAP Language Arts classes and the science and social studies blocks aren’t long enough to provide depth. Accelerating students through placing them in HS courses early doesn’t give them the challenging thought activities and conversations that a gifted kid’s brain needs to reach its full potential. Gifted kids need to make thematic connections, dig into areas of interest with deep research, and have conversations about complex issues. This is why TJ science courses teach beyond the AP material and why the math courses go far beyond the FCPS standards and AP standards. Parents need to push FCPS to bring back depth, not push for acceleration to nowhere. They also need to push for teachers who have the AAP state endorsement— not allowing teachers to get the FCPS endorsement within 3 years of teaching AAP and calling it a day. |
Anonymous
When I was at TJ a bajillion years ago there were kids who wanted to skip to just doing AP science instead of regular. For a kid like PP's, that might legitimately be a pathway worth pursing. For even the rest of us "average for TJ" types it would be a lot. |
Anonymous
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There are AP class offerings for Freshman. Ds is hoping to get AP Human Geography as a 9th grader instead of the standard World History 1 H, the AP class sounds more interesting and the type of analysis they discuss reads like a great match for his math loving mind.
The reality is that Honors English is easier to differentiate in by providing different readings and essays and the like. Math and Science are a bit harder to do that with. There are enough AP Social Studies classes that your kid can take all AP Social Studies classes now. AP Human Geography, AP World History, AP US History, and AP Government. Heck, there are even AP Econ classes and psychology classes. Acceleration is pretty much available in all of the fields now. |
Anonymous
Math is just easier to measure and plug into a system. You don’t really need age-based maturity for it. if kid is ready intellectually, they’re ready. Other subjects are different, they rely a lot more on maturity, discussion, and real-world context. It’s pretty reasonable to teach trig to a 7th grader, but not so much the heavy stuff you get in English literature, like complex relationships, or social studies topics like war, ethics, and social justice. |
Anonymous
Really???? In my experience, most students who hyper accelerate in math tend to be great at memorizing rules and procedures, BUT when asked the question of why something works or is true, they lack the ability to do so. This part of mathematics is important, not just memorizing. Like other people who have posted before, students need to time to develop their ability to articulate the process at arriving at their answer as well as learning the mathematical content. |