<p>
[quote]
... approximately half of all Americans have a below average IQ. [...] Do we honestly believe that EVERYONE needs to be able to do Pre-Calculus?? Do we honestly believe that EVERYONE needs to be able to do Physics??
[...] By expecting everyone to be able to pass a solid Pre-Calculus class, one of two things has to happen. Either a large number of students will fail and have to retake the class, possibly more than once, thus extending their stay in high school to more than 4 years or causing students to drop out before completing their credits .... or math teachers will have to lower the standards of the class in order for more students to be able to pass. If teachers lower the standards of the class, it is no longer a solid Pre-Calculus class.</p>
<p>There was a time when only students who were planning on going to college and majoring in engineering or architecture or mathematics or physics or medicine actually took 4 years of Math and 4 years of science. There are a large number of college degrees and life professions which require little or no Math background.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, people cannot balance a checkbook nor keep track of credit card debts nor reasonably figure out a household budget. But they WILL be able to identify an equation as being that of an Ellipse, or a Parabola, or a Hyperbola, or a Circle. Life skills, for sure.
<p>A couple of weeks later the author's commented on comments:
[quote]
By forcing every student in American High Schools to take and pass Algebra II and Pre-Calculus, all that is happening is the rigor of these classes is being destroyed. In order to have a solid passing rate, teachers are watering down the material. Take a look at the recently released Algebra II textbooks and you will see what I mean. Even the textbooks are teaching to the lowest student and thus pulling everything DOWN, not UP. If teachers want more rigor in their classes they are having to pull work from older discontinued textbooks. Many teachers aren't even using the new textbooks which their schools have paid thousands of dollars for because they don't contain the quality level of mathematics which was taught in the 70's an 80's. They do have lots of pretty pictures, though.
<p>I agree with the author in that the only reason why 4 years of math and 3 years of science (for my school at least, it’s bio, chem, physics) is because colleges require/recommend it.</p>
<p>But I also think that honors/AP courses are a good way of separating the good from the bad. It’s also a good idea to introduce the material to people, even if they’ll never use it.</p>
<p>Life skills need to be taught. (But it’s really not that hard to balance a checkbook.)</p>
<p>it’s such painful to see people who don’t even know some basic matters (like BASIC motion/force blah blah for physics, Acid/alkaline , pH etc for chem). you would be in trouble if you dont know those thing, because those actually appear so many times in our life.</p>
<p>and high school students DEFINITELY need to do math seriously. math makes your brain active, and (from my experience) people who are good at math are usually also good at other subjects :)</p>
<p>^ the person above seems not to have read carefully</p>
<p>I’m a foreign student from Vietnam, and we are having an opposite issue. The math curriculum is being complained for being too hard. Everybody has to learn Calculus since grade 10,11 (AP level I think, cuz I got all A in Calculus AP in my senior year here)</p>
<p>yes, pre-calc is getting watered down b/c there are so many lower students. however, that doesn’t mean pre-calc isn’t important. everyone should be able to do algebra II fluently; as many people as possible should be able to do pre-calc. pre-calc builds on the skills of algebra II and in fact supplements your fluency in algebra II. pre-calc is like a math elective after going through the algebra/geometry sequence. you apply all those years of algebra and geometry to slightly more complex material. not only that, but pre-calc is also necessary if you want to go to college–in college, you take calculus.</p>
<p>personally, i think that 1) the american system needs to change its attitude towards math so that 2) more focus can be given to math and helping kids be fluent in algebra ii and succeed in future math. right now there’s this ridiculous notion that “math is hard” or “math is useless.” then kids run towards the humanities and don’t focus on math/sciences. schools don’t do much to help as many of them try to emphasize “active citizenship” in the community. this means lots of focus on English, history, and social studies. in my school district, for example, even the requirements are biased: 8 years of english/history are required, versus only 4 years of math/science. just based on the requirements, there’s a leaning towards the humanities. yes, this helps with the active citizenship, but what people fail to realize is that it’s not helping with world activism and moving forward in society and technology.</p>
<p>so 1) ppl need to overcome their fears of math. 2) the american education system needs to reevaluate their emphases and give more focus on math. this means train better teachers in the basic maths and in the more complex maths. this also means pushing kids to take math and understand that it’s not scary and that it’s practical and applicable to life.</p>
<p>precalc in my school is a JOKE… the curriculum is completely watered down. and then my school district wonders why our high school does poorly on standardized testing… maybe if my school had math courses that weren’t based on regurgitating information…</p>
<p>LOL Perfidious91, you’re completely right. I think Calculus-level math actually started at the end of 9th grade (in my case). The ed. system is totally absurd.</p>
<p>You’re not born in 1991, are you? How dare you be in Calc while I’m only in Pre-Calc? (lol just kidding, when I came here they made me do 9th grade again)</p>
<p>Precalculus isn’t hard. Just memorize formulas and know when to apply them. People who aren’t good at high school math class just don’t practice enough.</p>
<p>Instead of precalc, for the fourth year of math, Texas could easily accept a Stats class (extremely useful, particularly to journalists) or College Algebra or whole host of other math classes, such as personal finance 101. It does not have to be Precalc.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any HS that requires precalc to graduate. The Univ of California and Cal State Univ only require Alg II for admissions.</p>
<p>bluebayou, re: UC admissions, if Alg II is the only transcript prerequisite in math, but they accept only the Math 2 SAT subject test (which requires pre-cal) if you choose to submit a Math subject test, then can I assume my liberal arts kid can go the Alg II / two non-Math subject tests route, but in profiling himself as a sci/math candidate, my son would need a curricular base of pre-cal (and more) with the accompanying Math 2 SAT subject test? </p>
<p>I disagree with the notion that honors/AP classes eliminate those who force teachers to water down math classes. As a fairly adept student of mathematics, I can promise you that in the honors math sequence in my school, all the way up to BC Calculus, there are students who would be unable to handle a truly rigorous math course. For this reason, as many of you have mentioned, extreme watering-down occurs. </p>
<p>I have seen theorems proved/derived no more than five times in all of high school. In BC Calculus, never mind proving limits geometrically or from the epsilon-delta definition, my school just tells students to memorize limits. And proving the product rule from the definition of the derivative as a limit? Never mind that that’s one of the most elementary proofs in calculus, just memorize it without understanding why it’s true. </p>
<p>Even worse, on the calculus midterm last week, all the students received formula sheets with a list of all the derivatives and integrals that were tested, as well as a description of u-substitution and the chain rule. Don’t even bother memorizing, just know what that elongated S-looking thing is. </p>
<p>All this said, I can certainly accept that precalculus is not integral to leading one’s life, in the same way that life doesn’t require you to analyze symbolism in Shakespeare, to derive Kepler’s Laws, to understand the impact of the War of 1812, to have a working knowledge of German, to identify a solution of metal ions based on its color, or to know the difference between marcato and largo. </p>
<p>Mankind has survived for thousands of years prior, and I suppose it can survive thousands of years hence, with or without precalculus.</p>
<p>Applicants applying for College of Engineering or College of Chemistry must be strong in math as is evidenced by Math 2 (highly “recommended”). Unlike some other state flagships, Cal-Berkeley does not offer remedial math classes. But, a math-science major applying to the College of Letter & Sciences does not have to take Math 2 since intended major is not an admissions factor to L&S (where most kids apply). But the point of the article is that ALL high schoolers have to take precalc, and this is not so. Precalc is not required even for the most selective public Uni in the land – altho it’s highly recommended.</p>