Reply to Why is Math the Super Accelerated Subject?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Why is Math the Super Accelerated Subject?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is in AP Calc BC in 10th grade. If there was an accelerated pathway for writing, she'd take it. But she can't, because the electives aren't any better than AP Lang and AP Lit (taken respectively in 11th and 12th), so there's no point. The English curriculum in MCPS is really bad. Thank goodness she reads and writes for pleasure, at home. She's in all AP classes for other things like APUSH and AP Physics C. All of it is easy for her.

Math is the one discipline where logical and critical thinking skills are all you need. Maturity and social skills are not needed. If you think about it for half a second, you'll recognize that all other disciplines need some basic level of understanding of human relationships. Very young, immature people can do very well in math. It's truly for anyone with the patience to cogitate.

This is why math, above any other subject, has been prized by scholars over the centuries of human civilization.

[/quote]

This is a very weird take. Math has definitely not been prized over other disciplines. It is currently the only discipline kids are allowed to accelerate in public schools because we have dumbed down the rest of the subjects, but the [b]dumber-downers are not actually smart enough to dumb down math.[/b] they try by blocking advanced course work but that is all they can do. [/quote]
Unfortunately, they are.

For instance, some schools no longer offer a direct path to Calc BC, forcing students to take a (yearlong) Calc AB first instead. They've also watered down Precalculus (can you say "AP Precalculus" - a reduced curriculum, with 25% optional and thus not taught.)  The teaching methods are short on practice, devoid of anything remotely challenging that requires students to think, and full of crap like "talk to your partner about this function."  It doesn't help when talented students (who say take Precalc in 9th grade) are put in the same class with math delayers who take Precalc in 12th. Traditionally homework intensive courses like Algebra I/H and Geometry H are now such that students work on a much reduced workload and are allowed to finish their work in class. Calculators are encouraged as early as the 4th week of Algebra I.  Participation in any kind of math contests (AMC8/10/12, MK, Mathcounts) is pretty much infinitesimal in terms of student population.

I've seen this all first hand, and it requires a constant fight with teachers and administration as well as substantial work at home (AoPS) to ensure that our child has a chance to get the education I did where I grew up.
[/quote]
I don’t really see the necessity of rushing students into Calc BC. DS’s school requires AB then BC, and the students come out very very strong in calculus and problem solving. If you’re going into physics or engineering, being able to take complex integrals quickly saves so much time on problem sets and makes it so when you have upper div courses you don’t have those “oh crap, what’s the integration by parts equation again?” moments.

Most stem students have no concept as to how important lessons in Taylor expansion, for example, are, so slowing it down actually is helpful.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics