Reply to Three Quarters Later - How is your 6th grader doing in Algebra 1 HN

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?[/quote]

PP above you. For my kid, it's because she was perenially bored in class. [b]Math is the one topic where kids can advance quickly. She can't skip an English class, or a Social Studies class.[/b] 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.
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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. [/quote]

[b]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.[/b] 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.
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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. [/quote]
That's opposite to my experience.  IME, most students of any level tend to be great at applying algorithms and getting correct answers without really understanding what they're doing.  The moment you're looking at kids who aren't especially accelerated or are on the regular and not honors track, that's nearly 100% of the class.  They fall apart the moment they're given problems that aren't very similar to what they've seen demonstrated in class.  Kids with exceptional natural math aptitude tend to understand why things work and excel at any problems given to them.  Kids with exceptional natural math aptitude are also the ones most likely to be hyper accelerated.

I guess I would agree with you that kids who are hyper accelerated due to parental pushiness rather than math aptitude conform to what you've experienced.  Those kids weren't likely to understand the nuts and bolts any better if they had waited a year.  They'd still mostly be algorithm followers.  [/quote]

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