Reply to Open enrollment for Math 7 Honors

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Parent here, so a different perspective... In my experience, kids who were in AAP or otherwise advanced in math in ES typically take Honors Algebra in 7th, not Math 7 Honors.  Our MS has already moved to an Honors for all strategy so all 7th graders not enrolled in Algebra or a remedial course take Math 7 Honors. Based on what you've stated about your child, I assume they would be fine.[/quote]

AAP teacher here.

The above is absolutely incorrect. Approximately 20%-50% of my students, depending on the year, take Algebra HN in 7th grade. The others take Math 7 HN.[/quote]

Different AAP teacher here. Agree. It also varies year to year. Some years more test in than others. Honestly, if the IAAT wasn’t 10 mins per section, you would see more students qualifying. I hate the Iowa because kids think they are dumb if they can’t work as fast, which is completely false. [/quote]

That's a very feel-good statement but processing speed has always been considered a major component of intelligence. It is a big contributor to IQ scores. In addition, even in practice (like in a work environment), people who very quickly solve a problem or pick up new information and are able to quickly form a judgment about it are considered by others to be more intelligent. Therefore, if a student cannot solve math problems quickly, they are in fact less intelligent.[/quote]

This statement is completely false. Speed is an artificial construct of the standard k-12 curriculum and standardized testing, that's it. It has nothing to do with problem solving abilities and should never be used to assess intelligence. In particular, speed becomes almost meaningless at higher levels where problems are difficult enough to demand insight and ingenuity. Nobody in college, in jobs or academia, or at the IMO olympiad is complaining that they cannot do well because they are too slow. There many other contributing factors but speed is not going to be one of them. It's quite a terrible thing to test children on something as trivial as speed and then suggest that they are not smart enough because they needed a few more minutes because they were not rushing through something. We wouldn't expect our engineers, scientists, and doctors to rush through things and we certainly wouldn't want to deal with the consequences of a rushed solution, so why don't we give children enough time to think?[/quote]

It's not about whether the kid is smart enough or not.  It's about having sufficient fluency to handle the multistep algebra problems.  I worked with some AAP students, and surprisingly many of them took forever to do something as simple as two digit multiplication.  [b]Either, they didn't have their facts memorized cold, or they were still using very inefficient algorithms. [/b] Algebra would have been torture, because every single homework set intended to take 30 minutes would have required 2 hours.  The IAAT might be too fast of a test, but at least some test to ensure that the kids are sufficiently fluent and don't require inordinate amounts of time to complete their work would be appropriate.  [/quote]
Or they just didn't understand the concept well enough. But there are other possibilities too, perhaps they were still trying to understand the efficient algorithm because it didn't make sense to them and they didn't want to just memorize it (as instructed by their teacher), and they were comfortable still using a slower but more logical algorithm that made sense to them. For instance, it would be a very rare kid in elementary school who can show a great understanding of how the traditional long division algorithm taught in school actually works; after all almost all adults also do not understand it! But almost everyone can automatically use it... without thinking. So... does being able to do long division very quickly using the traditional algorithm mean they're ready for algebra? Not necessarily. Does it help them score well on that specific portion of that specific exam? Definitely. Does it then mean it's generally a good idea to memorize and become 'fluent' in algorithms without a good understanding? Definitely not, and here's why:

There comes a point where it will not be enough for students to just rely on speed (what many of you here are essentially calling 'fluency') with procedural steps. At some point kids will tackle problems that defy standard algorithms and where they will have to figure out what and how to use a particular tool/algorithm. They will need to slow down a little and rely on their understanding of ideas and concepts and how to put them together to solve the particular problem at hand, much like how one has to use logic and reasoning to solve a puzzle. Maybe this point comes before algebra, but for many kids (many who are 'fast' at calculations), this point tends to occur in algebra (or perhaps geometry, or later in high school). At that point slowing down and focusing on why things work they way they do is immensely helpful in improving one's ability to solve math problems.
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Huh?  The question isn't whether kids who are fluent with math are smarter than other kids or even are more ready for Algebra.  The fluent kids might be ready for Algebra.  The non-fluent kids aren't yet ready for Algebra because they still need a bit more fluency.  Otherwise, their computations will take forever and they will become very frustrated.  They ultimately might become better mathematicians, but they simply aren't ready *now* for that level since they lack the foundational skills.

I don't think you appreciate just how awful some of these kids are with fluency.  I've encountered AAP 6th graders who were still counting on their fingers.  Or ones that would need like 5 minutes to solve 6/7-3/5.  It should be entirely possible to complete the SOLs in like an hour.  Some kids take the entire day.  Shoving them into Algebra without trying to address whatever underlying gaps in understanding or fluency would be a mistake.  
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