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[quote=Anonymous]Math teacher here. Recommend taking either Alg 1 one year, preferably in 9th, then geometry the next year, or taking Alg 1 one year, preferably 9th, then Geometry and Alg 2 concurrently, preferably in 10th.

I have found that students taking Algebra 1 in 7th or 8th usually get taught a watered down course conceptually - their brains (with a few notable exceptions) just aren't ready for the concepts, even if they can perform the rote operations. But admin and parents want their little darlings to get good grades rather than the grade they'd probably get if they got a full Alg 1 course, so the course is watered down (either all the concepts are taught but not in depth, or some concepts are just skipped.) Then when they take Alg 2, I can't teach it with full rigor because I end up having to reteach the concepts they should have known already, but don't because their Alg 1 course was watered down, therefore I can't get through the full Alg 2 course.

I have a fair amount of success with the kids who take Geom and Alg 2 concurrently in 10th. Those kids are usually already advanced in math, so taking those two courses at the same time isn't usually a problem. But without a strong Alg 1 foundation, they will struggle in both Geom and Alg 2 and frankly all subsequent math courses.

I advocate for taking Geom as a year long course because there is a main building block in that course - proofs. Geom in the summer does not have the time to for me to teach teach and for my students to learn and practice proofs. Proofs take time to learn. I tell my kids it's like training for a marathon - you can't get your body ready to run that far in 6 weeks. It takes lots of work and just plain putting in the time for the body to build that kind of strength and endurance. You can't shortcut the procedure. Proofs are like that.  With proofs, especially formal proofs, you learn to formulate and organize your hypotheses, and to explain and justify them with the laws and rules of mathematics.  It's a real struggle for most, but oh, so worth it - proofs are so good for progressing to advanced levels of mathematical thinking! [/quote]

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