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Reply to "I push my kids and have NO shame! You should too!!!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Lol! I agree to an extent except I think algebra in 7th is the stupidest trend.[/quote]

Sounds like the rhetoric of an underachiever. [/quote]
I have a STEM PhD from an elite school and agree with this.  Elementary math is too easy.  But it doesn't need more acceleration, it needs more hard problems that force kids to conceptualize the math.   More depth, not more speed.

There's no reason kids can't take Algebra in 8th and still finish Calc BC by senior year.  That's plenty to major in STEM in college.  I actually think it's better to take the next math classes (e.g., Diff Eq and Linear Algebra) when you're taking them at the same time as science or engineering classes that use that math.  It's more immersive and provides better context.  [/quote]

+1 Acceleration is leading to worse math understanding rather than better.  There are two trends I'm seeing in math education--one is acceleration--doing the same stuff to the same depth only faster.  The other is broadening the range of math--adding in statistics/probability and more real-world applications earlier.  The latter isn't 'bad' to me, but it's not doing what I think is most important which is building more solid, flexible math understanding by doing harder pre-algebra problems in elementary school.  I would like kids to enter into 8th grade algebra with a rock solid number sense and operational fluency and a sense of confidence about numbers and how and when to use them.[/quote]

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