<p>litho - actually, it's 5. Most kids take either calc AB or calc BC in one year, not both in consecutive years. If you take algebra 1 in 8th grade (or double up somewhere like Bettina's dtr did), you are on target to have calc as a senior.</p>
<p>Marite wrote:
"Honestly, at the time we embarked on this, we were not thinking about college. We just wanted to prevent our S from being bored into delinquency."</p>
<p>That pretty much sums up what I was going to write after reading Mr. B's post. I do appreciate what Mr. B wrote, particularly as a teacher (having been a teacher myself) and understand that he has observed parents who have "pushed" their kids to take higher levels of math, etc. to get into a "good" college. But that sentiment or rationale was not ours. Ours was akin to Marite's....simply as an effort to best meet our kids' learning needs and levels. College was never on our minds when advocating for academic accomodations to meet their learning needs. It was never done to be beneficial for college. It was done because the kids were bored or unhappy not working at their level. Very motivated and advanced students often are quite dissatisfied when the work is too easy and not challenging. It is compounded in our case when coming from an elementary school that allowed for individualization and had differentiated curriculum in the classroom to then be thrust into homogeneous grouping where everyone does the same level work and it is easier than what you did in elem school. Just like a kid with learning disabilities who struggles when the work is beyond him/her, an advanced learner also struggles in other ways when the level of the work is below him/her. Appropriate work was our aim in finding accomodations for accelerated learning and so forth, not what bearing it would have down the line with colleges. Like Marite, we were never thinking about college when embarking on advocating for learning accomodations or appropriate placements in certain subjects. And I am certainly not advocating for Algebra to be taught to all seventh graders or even eighth graders, but simply to be available to kids who have reached that level developmentally. It would not be the aim to have all kids do this in middle school. It reminds me of how my kids were reading as preschoolers and one of their K teachers did not want to make any accomodations for the fact that the child could read independently or write on her own because we don't teach reading in K.....which I agree would not be the aim developmentally for a typical K student but....do you ignore that someone entered K already reading and writing....? I mean it is not her fault that she developmentally is not supposed to be doing that already. So, the issue is meeting the learning needs of the individual here. Some learners are accelerated or advanced beyond their age. That does not mean we need to push all kids to do these things at younger ages but simply that we must address the needs of learners who happen to be like this. I once had a seventh grade teacher (French) who responded to my inquiry of what to do with the child's boredom at having to learn the French ABCs when she already could read and write French and she said, "just tell her to kick her feet up for one period of the day and enjoy it as she works so hard in the rest that she is doing all day" to which I was shocked and had to say, "but this kid does not WANT to kick her heels up and take it easy. She CRAVES challenge and is crying at being so bored and having to sit through what she already knows and is not learning anything new." So, that is what the issue is here, not that she look good to colleges. We did not deal with thinking about college until junior year, when we were way beyond addressing their accelerated and gifted learning needs. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I also want to note that it is NOT necessary to take AP-Calc to get into a selective college. Just as a math-loving kid should not be held back, no student should be pushed into Calculus for the sake of looking good to colleges. My older S had Algebra II, Geometry, and Precalc, all Honors, then, with our blessing, resisted his GC''s advice that he go into AP-Calc. He knew he was not going to be a math/science major and did not see the need for Calculus (nor did he take any AP Science). He did take a fourth year of math and a fourth year of science. He was accepted into several top LACs.</p>