Reply to Double up on Math at JR?

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Reply to "Double up on Math at JR?"

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[quote=Anonymous]As a math teacher, please don't let your kid take Algebra 1 and Geometry at the same time - they really need their Algebra skills for Geometry!!!

But I have many high level students take Geometry and Algebra 2 at the same time sophomore year. If they are truly high level kids, not kids whose parents are pushing them to take classes out of their ability level, then they always do well. Then in junior year they take trig/precalc, and take Calc senior year, and succeed in both.

I am not an advocate of taking Geometry in the summer, even though I developed our school's summer school Geometry class and have taught it. I have fund that the kids who do this don't have enough time to learn the in-depth Geometry thinking skills they need for trig and calc - I have to spend much more time remediating those kids than the one who took Geometry as a year long class. Geometry is so much more than skills - it develops mathematical thinking though proofs. And there just isn't enough time in a summer school class, that is usually only a month or six weeks long, to learn the thinking that supports doing and understanding proofs. It's like trying to condense training for a marathon into a month when it takes a year or more to train for one - trying to run the hundreds of miles needed to train for a marathon in a month or 6 weeks instead of over a year or more just breaks down the body and practically guarantees injury. There are a very few who can handle it, but the vast majority can't. [/quote]

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