Taking summer classes to accelerate
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Anonymous
My son is in 5th grade AAP and he has a 3rd grade AAP student who joins his class for math. That’s how it is done for those who actually need it - not over the summer IMO. |
Anonymous
Taking PE in the summer is bad. PE should be daily all throughout HS. Kids need the movement and the mental break. It also serves as a segregator for ‘nerds’ and ‘non nerds’. If you take some hard course during the summer, you still have the time to exercise and do social relaxing activities. If you overload yourself with hard subjects throughout the school year you’re in for a spectacular burnout. As per geometry, I’ve seen kids take it cold during the summer and I’ve seen ones who have taken some outside enrichment during the prior year or semester and it was not all new to them. I would not recommend the going into it cold unless your kid is really good and interested in math, no need to be a genius. |
Anonymous
If you take both music and a foreign language, then with PE during the school year, you get no electives. That's the reason to take PR during the summer. |
Anonymous
Many kids are playing a sport or doing other things that are active so PE in school does not really do much for them. And PE at school just sucked. PE during the summer is about the only class I am thinking of for DS when he is in high school. I would far prefer that he find an elective that he was interested in that was a nice break from regular classes in HS then PE. |
Anonymous
PE is very useful as a day break. It gives them a culture of exercising during the day and not only before or after with a day of no movement. |
Anonymous
Finally a sensible answer. You can guide your kids, but yes they need to learn to start making decisions on their own. Besides the PE stuff to free up for electives (and fun ones like choir or band!), there will be not summer classes for my kids. |
He likes PE as a break during the day.
Anonymous
Kinda dumb bc most 11-12th graders aren’t taking PE during the day - so there goes your culture theory. |
Anonymous
And that’s the problem. One of the most profitable medical professions, pain injections for broken backs. |
Anonymous
This is us too. Although probably not chemistry. Labs in school are best with chemistry. Some people don’t get the geometry over the summer thing. It’s not just TJ that makes this important for us. Our base school offers Calc BC and Multivariable calculus, and we can take classes in math senior year via dual enrollment or AP stats to just fill the space. Moreover, it depends on the kid. Some kids love math. Some kids are talented at math. Some kids are both. I know a lot of people who don’t understand the push: but if your kid is truly talented at math, this is what can be done. My DD is extremely competitive academically too, so this is really up her alley. As for college: calc bc allows you to skip regular physics and take AP physics concurrently or the next year. So if your kid is taking Algebra II in 8th, precalc in 9th, and then calc bc in 10th: they don’t have to take regular physics before physics AP. And calc bc counts for like three classes at UVA. So we’re talking about 16? Credits before their junior year done. The added perk: I’ve always strongly felt that the overlap between physics and calculus should mean that it is taken together because physics gives the real life applications of calculus. It makes sense from a post graduate perspective. But also- doing this sophomore year is easier because junior year their workload gets higher- so having them have the time for these classes helps them build the foundation later. As for post AP classes: sure they don’t get credit for these classes. But going into college they will sail through the college courses. And that’s important if they want to do advanced engineering. It also helps in other classes like quantum mechanics and p.Chem. But if you don’t have that kind of kid, it’s completely unnecessary. We have that kid. We don’t advertise we have that kid. And I think that’s why a lot of parents are wondering why our kid is taking geometry this summer. |
Anonymous
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My issue with Geometry over the summer is it takes a class that is already condensed in the US and further condenses it. RSM has a 3-year geometry program so that there is time to dive more deeply into the subject and make sure that kids have a very strong foundation in geometry. I struggled with math, so I am not the person to fully understand why this is a good thing, but my Chemical Engineer husband thinks that it is great. I would guess that is the path we will go down. DS loves math and finds math at school to be boring and math at RSM to be fine but not super challenging. He is excited about starting the geometry program at RSM since it should be material that he has not seen before and should be challenging.
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Anonymous
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Summer school is just sad. In my day it was for remedial kids. Now kids *want* to be in it?
Also, the highly competitive kid mentioned above taking geometry in the summer and AP Physics without regular physics - 98% guarantee they will end up burnt out and a college dropout. |
Anonymous
A 3-year geometry class? A fool and his money... |
Anonymous
We have a 3 year algebra sequence in the US and Europe actually teaches geometry very differently then we do in the US. Do you think that Euclidean Geometry is completely covered in a one year high school class? Or do you think that there is more there and it is would be beneficial to have a stronger understanding of geometry? No one would argue that the one semester or one year US History or European History or World Civilization actually covers that material. Why would you think that one year of Geometry actually covers Geometry? |
Anonymous
For the same reason that she thinks doing lots of stem early on it’s lots of torture. |
Anonymous
Geometry has a wide array of applications (algebraic, differential, metric) ... one only has to look at the Fields Medal winners, to see it. It's total BS that it's taught for one year and not ever again, and worse that it is allowable to do it over two months instead of a year. For some perspective: https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/ |