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][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]
1.  One argument is that it's unnecessary.  Kids can more deeply engage with the material in their grade level class, do better projects, write stronger essays, etc.  I'm not sure that this is true in practice, but a lot of teachers would argue that they could challenge advanced kids adequately with some in-class differentiation.  In math, whether the kid already knows the content is pretty cut and dried.
2.  The subject matter covered in advanced English and History classes may be age inappropriate for younger kids.

I don't see any reason why parents couldn't or shouldn't lobby schools for accelerated English and History content.  In the past, kids who were advanced were skipped ahead multiple grade levels in school.  The schools have not figured out how to adequately handle kids who are no longer being grade level skipped, but still need deeper instruction.  [/quote]

AAP teacher here. I have kids who have scored on 9th grade level but their writing was on grade level or below and that is where my focus was with them. While I have many kids who are strong readers and writers they can always improve. Very few of my 6th graders get 4s all year in LA. With Benchmark, a lot of the readings are challenging.

For SS, it is very easy for me to add depth and complexity to the SS curriculum but it is important they get basic background knowledge before high school. [/quote]

Another AAP teacher here who has taught at ES, MS, HS. I’d give more detail, but don’t want to totally out myself.

I agree with the AAP teacher above — teaching truly gifted kids means going deeper, not faster. In FCPS’ race to shove kids into AAP (what they count as the state mandated gifted program) and into math acceleration, they have lost the focus on depth.  The AAP extended standards were supposed to create that depth in science, social studies, and LA. That depth generally happens in the AAP MS courses (not honors, which is now just regular with very little depth), but it does not really happen in many of the ES AAP Language Arts classes and the science and social studies blocks aren’t long enough to provide depth.

Accelerating students through placing them in HS courses early doesn’t give them the challenging thought activities and conversations that a gifted kid’s brain needs to reach its full potential. Gifted kids need to make thematic connections, dig into areas of interest with deep research, and have conversations about complex issues. This is why TJ science courses teach beyond the AP material and why the math courses go far beyond the FCPS standards and AP standards. Parents need to push FCPS to bring back depth, not push for acceleration to nowhere. They also need to push for teachers who have the AAP state endorsement— not allowing teachers to get the FCPS endorsement within 3 years of teaching AAP and calling it a day. [/quote]
I agree that depth would be much better than acceleration.  A lot of parents accept that FCPS just isn't going to provide real depth, so they outsource to AoPS or RSM and then push for the acceleration so their kid is wasting less time in school.  IME, any math class will teach to the lower end of the middle of the class.  Even in AAP, there are enough kids who aren't especially strong in math and cause the entire class to be mildly accelerated and mildly deeper than the regular class.  The only way to offer truly deeper classes would be to severely restrict enrollment.  Parents accept that FCPS is just not going to do that.  [/quote]

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