Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Another non-learner here. My kid did go to a Montessori preschool which probably got him off an "too advanced" start. This was all him though and he is just a quick learner. He is curious about math and reads math books on his own.
Anyways, that's not the point. The point is that the challenge is not there for him. A few years ago it would have been. Now, not so much.
A few years ago, it wouldn't have been either. The old system was not letting kids learn at their own pace.
The old system was putting kids a year ahead, or rarely two years ahead. But it was still a year of math in a year. Not a challenge for a math lover and quick learner.
This is not true. In the old system, kids could be put 1, 2 or 3 years ahead and some were even 4 years ahead (rare). At our school, classes were commonly structured as grade level + 1 year ahead extensions. So, for example, a 2nd grader could be taking 3rd grade math with 4th grade extensions. The unit tests tested both 3rd and 4th grade concepts. Within one classroom some kids could be one year ahead completing one year in a year, and other kids could be working one year ahead completing two years in one year. There was a lot of flexibility and students were pre-assessed for skills mastered for placement at the beginning of the year. Then they were assessed in each unit. So, it was very clear where they began, what they worked on and what they mastered. That is not at all the case now.
This may have varied somewhat by individual school. Obviously, the larger the cohort of individuals ready for math at a particular level, the easier it was to arrange. No matter what school you attended in the old system, if you were the only kid who was capable of working 2 years ahead, you were probably SOL. But, if there were 20 kids working 2 years ahead, then the system would create a class for them.