Reply to Should I send my kids to mathnasium?

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[quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You are drinking the koolaid. Some tricks may or may not be covered in a high school Algebra I class. But more is covered in the school class. It’s a class that meets every day for a year. Aops meets once a week.

It’s a great program. It’s the best program that is readily available if you ask me. But nothing compares to a real high school class. Your experience may differ. like with everything you get what you put into it. [/quote]

DP, but let's do the math.  [b]In FCPS middle schools with block scheduling, Algebra I honors meets every other day for 1.5 hours.[/b]  In that class, perhaps 1 hour is used as instructional time and the other half hour is used for kids to get an early start on homework.  So, there are approximately 2.5 hours of instructional time in the schedule.  This isn't accounting for teacher work days, holidays, and any other disruptions in the schedule.  The average weekly instructional time would be less than 2.5 hours due to the holidays and such.

AoPS classes have 1 hour and 45 minutes of in-class instruction per week.  Generally, holidays aren't off, so they're doing this every week.  It really isn't much less than an in-person class.  Also, AoPS classes have fewer students than FCPS ones, so the kids get more individual attention and are more able to ask questions of the teacher.

Both AoPS and FCPS honors algebra have similar weekly homework loads.  There isn't the huge gulf between the two.  [/quote]

This is incorrect.  Even with block sceduling, math still meets every day.

And if you really think that AOPS is faithfully replicating a high school honors math class, [b]why would you send your kid to school duplicatively[/b] instead of homeschool them?  Even in college, as an engineering major, I only took one math class at a time.  [b]Poor kids[/b].  [/quote]

As an engineer I'm surprised at the number of assumptions you are making here. AoPS is an enrichment program and is taught/implemented in very different fashion to algebra class in school (and aimed at motivated and high performing kids, not the exact same audience that takes algebra in school). Is there something wrong with going beyond school in doing enrichment activities outside of school? Also I also don't understand your "poor kids" comment here; is this your personal projection, or do you just advocate for having a low bar as to what kids can handle? Most are very excited to get to learn learn outside of school (not just math, but anything they are interested in) and much more capable than you seem to think. I'm also very surprised that you don't seem to believe that math is a central component of engineering. I majored in engineering and I had lots of math in each one of my engineering classes, (at least 2 to 3 classes each semester). Some engineering classes were almost completely math.[/quote]

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