How hard will Blair's Functions class be for a kid who currently finds Algebra 2 "easy"?

[Anonymous]

Whether your kid takes Mag Pre Cal or Functions, the kids all end at the same place. I had one who took Functions and one who did not, both in the Magnet, both got all A’s. The one who did not take Functions went to an Ivy, the Function one didn’t. It literally makes no difference. It depends how much homework you want to pile on your kid. If they LOVE math, then do it, if they like math, you may not want to. Every year at least 1/4 of the kids drop the class. You do not want your kid hating math as a result.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My DS breezed through Algebra II in 8th and signed up for Functions at Blair, but ended up dropping it early in the semester. He felt that he could follow the classroom material just fine, but the homework load (3 hours/night for him) was killing him. I was so glad when he decided to drop; that level of stress isn’t good for any 14 year old. It stressed ME just to think about what would happen if he missed a week of school because of Covid or a death in the family. How would he ever catch up?

Some people in this board have posted that the homework load is more like 1-1.5 hours per night. FWIW, my DS knew a lot of the kids in his Functions class from previous classes, and he thinks that many of them had already been exposed to the material via math teams or private math schools. I’m not surprised if those kids need less time for the homework.

Yes, there are definitely kids who were exposed to the content ahead of time in my kid's year. It was hard. But, there are plenty in the same boat new to the stuff. Mine found that the teacher was super helpful and kid would go in at lunch sometimes. Also developed some good friends working on problem sets together. Learned to tune out the pre-exposed kids who acted like hotshots.

Were any of the pre-exposed kids helpful peer tutors?

PP here. Study groups and teacher were best. One kid in group had done aops, and mine asked her to peer tutor later on for Discrete which is related to math team math. She was a better teacher than the actual teacher (who was both sexist and a bad teacher).

Was that this teacher?

https://silverchips.mbhs.edu/content/rose-is-my-favorite-teacher-26512/

PP here. Maybe things were different in 2009, but there have been widespread complaints about him all through my kid's time there. Of course, there are a few who liked him. He tried hard to buddy up with some kids. But, as a teacher, he was not effective. Did not teach much and often could not explain some concepts, gearing class to students already familiar with content from math team. He was biased against girls, favored math team kids, wouldn't answer questions "yeah, I'm not gonna answer that," or would just ignore students (mostly girls). Graded vary late. Literally told students he did not grade their work because he spent all his time on social media. Asked for feedback but then would blame the student if feedback was critical at all. Other teachers couldn't help with tutoring because content was so niche, and he was unhelpful one on one. Mine relied on internet and a peer who had taken class previous year and was a math team regular and did ok. Some students really struggled because they could not get decent teaching, and for some (especially females), it was a pretty hostile environment. Things with teacher were so bad in Fall 21, a large group of students made very specific complaints to admin (O), and O was meeting with him and sitting in on class. But, I guess he's still there.

Who is this and what math class does he or did he teach?

This was an experience from Discrete.

[Anonymous]

How many people have dropped out of Functions so far?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many people have dropped out of Functions so far?

17

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Can one of you PPs share an example of what the problems are like?

Why? Are you the parent of a current student?

If I were a parent of a current student, I would post a picture of homework.

I am a parent of prospective students, so I'd like to know what the class is about, o see whether it would be a fit for my students, and also to see what to target if they don't go to Blair but want to pursue a similar course of study on their own.

1) I’m not sharing my kid’s homework here (it’s completed)
2) you can’t post a photo without having it hosted somewhere which is usually not anonymous
3) I’m not sure how sharing a problem or two at the start of the year would give you an accurate overview of the breadth and depth of this program

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1. I presume that not all the homework always completed before you see it.
Also, often homework problems are losted digitally or are printed not on the same page as the student work, especially for hard problems that take several minutes of work.


2. https://imgbb.com/
Free hosting without login.

Example: (funny problem I saw in the Precalculus C summer math packet at https://mbhs.edu/departments/magnet/Summerpackets.php , the closest thing I could find to an example of what Precalculus/Functions covers.)



That's

https://i.ibb.co/hdYMfvw/Screenshot-20230911-092644.png , wrapped in the DCUM [ img ] tag
(Long press or right -click on uploaded image, to get the address of the image.)



3. Commenters said that it's already 3+hrs to do a packet this week, so it seems representative enough, certainly better than the nothing already public (except for the summer packet which is the same normal MCPS Honors math packet).

Look, you are a free human being. You don't have to post anything if you don't want to. But the coy excuses are just weird.

Have a great day.

The above problem is bogus, it is not possible to have a correct diagram with the angles and side length expressions given in the problem.

x=3.5 (assuming degrees), y=5, seems to work?

Yes those are the right values algebraically, but after plugging in and labeling the resulting given angles and lengths in the diagram, it is not geometrically possible.

Oh, I see. The side opposite B is too short to allow the angle at B.

I was focused on a different reason why the problem is impossible to solve as stated.

Anyway, it certainly fails to instill confidence in the quality of the magnet math program, unless the problem was designed to intentionally troll the students, and was explained during class.

Highly unlikely it was intentionally designed that way, especially since it didn't ask students to think/notice anything and just demanded a proof. Much more likely that whoever assigned it probably thought it would be ok to just change numbers and have the algebra work but didn't check the geometry.

I think it's even worse than that. I'm pretty sure (my kid and I agree, but maybe we are wrong) that no matter what any of the *numbers* in the problem are, it is *never* possible to determine whether A is acute or obtuse in a problem with that configuration. For some choices of numbers, you can proof that A is a right angle, but for other numbers, if there is an acute solution, there is an obstuse solution also. This is a theorem of Geometry (SSA *non*-congruence.)

Well the numbers in the problem are already predetermined by solving for the variables x and y in the problem. First solve for x (the only non-extraneous solution here is x = 7/2), then that allows you to conclude that the triangles are similar (because when you plug the above x value in the expressions, both <ABD and <ECD come out to the same value of 43 degrees, hence similarity by AA). Now, you can use the four side lengths that are given in terms of y... just write out a similarity condition and solve it to get y = 5. So now you can label all the expressions in the problems with their values, so those are determined. However, the diagram is not actually possible, (for example if you use Law of Sines on one of the triangles, say triangle CED so that you can find <ECD, you will get an equation that does not have a solution because sin<CED will be greater than 1.

I mean that even if the expressions are different, leading to different values for x and y, and different side lengths and angles, and even if that does make a valid triangle, "prove A is obtuse" is still impossible, because either A is a right angle or else there are 2 valid triangles, one with A acute and one with A obtuse.

Sorry I misunderstood what you meant, yes you are absolutely right, even if the expressions were changed to actually yield a configuration that is geometrically possible, there would be two possible configurations, one obtuse and one acute, so it's impossible to 'prove that <A is obtuse'. In this sense, this problem is quite problematic, no pun intended. I would also argue that this problems is just plain stupid because it doesn't really teach any meaningful geometry. No meaningful geometry problems try to constrain the angles with algebraic expressions the way it is set up here. So I'd say it's a waste of time for multiple reasons.

It's perilously similar to the classic (probably apocryphal) V.I. Arnold story of how American geometry (math) classes and students don't understand geometry (math).

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1594740/v-i-arnold-says-russian-students-cant-solve-this-problem-but-american-student

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How many people have dropped out of Functions so far?

17

Btw this number is completely bogus. The question is ridiculous. No one is going to know the answer to that question except the school and I can’t imagine they’d share it.

[Anonymous]

Yes it's bogus. My child knows a couple of kids who were placed in Functions who preferred not to be in the class and changed as soon as schedules came out, but says no one has actually dropped in their class. I think there are not that many sections.

DC is unsure whether to stay in the class but will wait a few more weeks like others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes it's bogus. My child knows a couple of kids who were placed in Functions who preferred not to be in the class and changed as soon as schedules came out, but says no one has actually dropped in their class. I think there are not that many sections.

DC is unsure whether to stay in the class but will wait a few more weeks like others.

My kid knows more than one who have dropped it. But really no one is going to be able to give an accurate answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many people have dropped out of Functions so far?

17

Btw this number is completely bogus. The question is ridiculous. No one is going to know the answer to that question except the school and I can’t imagine they’d share it.

Wouldn't all the kids in class know how many left?

[Anonymous]

There's usually more than one section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many people have dropped out of Functions so far?

17

Btw this number is completely bogus. The question is ridiculous. No one is going to know the answer to that question except the school and I can’t imagine they’d share it.

Wouldn't all the kids in class know how many left?

How? Is your kid counting heads in the classroom every day? There's also a lot of schedule switching the first three weeks, making it even harder to figure out who dropped versus just moved.

[Anonymous]

Kids talk to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids talk to each other.

Kids aren’t like the parents on this board. They are not tracking and counting and categorizing the kids in their class that they’ve barely got to know yet. The question was idiotic

[Anonymous]

You people sound insane

[Anonymous]

How many students stuck with Functions all year?

How many 9 page packets with 45 questions were there?