Kid struggling in pre-calc; how to help?

Much better to drop down to regular level and get a good grade. Look, it’s not that the kid isn’t trying! He’s doing everything right! Take the stress off of him, let him drop down.

We all of us hit the wall at some point, with something we wanted to do. Learning how to handle failure is very important. Student needs to say, “I gave it my best shot, it’s affecting my other work and my emotional well-being. It’s no shame to pivot, drop down to regular in math, and continue my life.”

He is NOT a failure! He has pushed himself to his limit, found it, at least in this class, this semester, with this teacher, under these circumstances.

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I have heard this story so many times, of kids falling off the track in math due to a bad teacher or absurd fad curriculum early on. My husband spent 3rd grade in a country where he didn’t speak the language, and so learned virtually nothing. Then in 4th grade back in the US, the fad was doing math as a group effort without supervision, and because he’d missed 3rd grade math, he didn’t know what was going on. Due to the brilliant fad of doing math as a group effort, he could just sit back and coast, and no one cared enough to realize that he didn’t understand the math. He limped along like that, and wound up with a PhD in English, although he had a strong interest in science (father was a physics professor).

When my kids were in school, the fad was “spiraling curriculum” in math. It was ridiculous. Every year, they touched on every topic in math, from addition to even early Algebra. No algorithms were taught - the kid was supposed to invent math for himself from the bottom up, and every method was equally valid. No memorizing of timetables/division tables. Just add 8 to 8 to 8 to 8 to 8… to get the answer for 8x5. Guess and check instead of algebra. I very quickly realized that my kids would wind up math cripples, so I taught each of them traditional standard algorithmic math myself, up until geometry, for which they had a great teacher. There’s more to the story, but the point is that math has been very poorly taught in the US at the elementary and middle school level ever since the concept of “New Math” (anyone recall the Tom Lehrer song about that?) back in the 60s. In fact, most American kids never get past the most basic math, never really manage to do high school math at all. When my husband was a teacher for an “alternative” class of kids who just couldn’t hack it in the regular classroom, he spent a lot of time with them just teaching them basic math. They were 7th and 8th graders who were not intellectually disabled, but had never learned more than simple addition and subtraction.

It doesn’t sound like this is the case for the OP’s son, but for most US children in public schools, and even in some private ones, the only way that they will learn math is if a parent teaches it to them at home.

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The frustrating part of it all is seeing your child having a hard time, sending her for help with the teacher, meeting with the guidance department to ask for help and being told all along the way that she doesn’t qualify for any school-based help because her grades are “fine”.

ETA Not sure how she managed a 4.0 UW GPA by counting on her fingers in pre-Calc and IB Math but who am I to ask…

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Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions and solid support.

Yes, he really is trying his best. I don’t pretend to understand anything past fractions and maybe what a right-angle triangle is - but even I can sit with him after a practice ACT math test and see him riff off questions and do equations and see that he knows how he got something wrong and that he knows the calculations or whatever to do it correctly. It is not that he doesn’t have a foundation.

Mental block or reached his limit - either way, we had a good talk last night and he’s going to request dropping down to regular pre-calc. It seems to be a big weight off his mind. He wants to talk to his adviser, his class dean and his teacher and do it all himself; asks that we step in after all that, just to confirm that he has parental support. Which seems very mature of him.

Two issues that could be bad, however:

  1. I think it would be a Withdraw/Passing on his transcript (as opposed to Withdraw/Failing) – fingers crossed that this is indeed the case.

  2. This sets him up for a possible repeat next year, because according to DS, the next highest math step is …honors calculus. There is no regular calculus. We can only cross our fingers about the teacher he gets and whether it’s similarly confounding to him.

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The human brain continues to develop its math ability as teens grow. It’s why many adults who struggled with math in school can find it easy when they return to CC to take some college classes. More than once I’ve heard an adult tell me, “Why is this so easy now and why couldn’t I understand it back in high school?” Their brain wasn’t developed enough in high school, but it continued to develop as they aged.

It in no way means they’re slow. It’s all normal - same as if a youngster walks at 8 months vs 15. My highest stat lad was one of those who walked at 15 months and couldn’t talk or read well until 2nd grade (lowest reading group, speech lessons, etc). We made the mistake of thinking he’d be slower than average at everything. Not so. He’s the doctor now. Humans develop at different speeds and it’s quite normal.

School, however, is based upon average or even faster than average development. It can discourage kids unfortunately.

Many students in my lower level math classes feel a bit better about themselves when I describe the brain development aspect to them (it helps knowing both science/math!). The pure knowledge that they aren’t dumb like they thought they were from previous classes helps many do better even at that point.

Make sure your guy knows he’s perfectly normal and could find next year easier simply because his mind has had another year to develop.

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I will say that my D22 did not opt for higher level math in high school and has found the perfect college for herself. Her school does Common Core and she did the on-grade sequence of Math 1, Math 2, Math 3, and Math 4, as opposed to the maybe more common accelerated by one grade sequence of Math 2, Math 3, Pre-Calc, Calculus. She thought about taking Pre-Calc this year instead of Math 4 (which has some personal finance elements), but she decided she really didn’t want to so we went with it. She was not aiming for Top 20 schools, but has gotten into every school she applied to and is very happy with not being in Pre-Calc.

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I agree with dropping down to the college prep level.

If, for some reason, your son doesn’t get recommended for Honors Calculus (or whatever reason that blocks him from taking it), then I would encourage him to take AP Stats. Heck, I had an A- in college prep geometry and my counselor offered me a recommendation for AP Stats.

Or, consider taking having him take Pre-Calculus or Calculus I at a local CC over the summer.

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What are the calculus options at the school?

If “honors calculus” is a less rigorous course than AP calculus AB, then it is probably similar in material covered to what in college is a less rigorous calculus-for-business-majors course.

If he will go into a major that requires calculus, typical offerings in college will be:

  • Calculus-for-business-majors – typically the less difficult version.
  • Calculus (for majors that may require more advanced math) – covers the material similar to AP calculus BC (including the AB material) in two semesters.

Summer precalculus at a college will cover the material at about four times the pace of precalculus in high school. Summer calculus 1 at a college will also be much faster paced than any typical math in high school. This type of suggestion seems like an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” type of thing.

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philosophy major. maybe poly sci.
not math/stem at all

Philosophy majors* need to be able to think logically. While not math, it is math-adjacent. Probably the closest thing in high school would be proofs in geometry.

Political science majors may have to take a statistics or quantitative methods course for their major.

*and LSAT takers and law students.

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A humanities degree may only have one required quantitative methods course.

A social sciences degree, with the possible exception of History, will typically require a stats course and possibly even two semesters of stats or a semester of Calculus (Economics, Sociology, etc).

A natural sciences degree will typically require at least two semesters of quantitative work, including a semester of stats and a semester of Calculus. However, degrees like Chemistry/Physics will require much more. Applied sciences, such as Engineering or Forestry, will vary.

And the formal sciences (Math, CS, Philosophy) will also have varying requirements. Lots of “Logic” work, and the former two will require plenty of theoretical math courses.

With that being said, Elementary Statistics is a passable course if a student did fine in Algebra and Geometry. And if he gets his PreCalc grade up to a B or higher (even in college prep), passing one semester of Calculus will be quite possible.

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Even I got a B in statistics in college. And I am a math cretin.
He’ll do fine, methinks.

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Basic (non-calculus-based) statistics in college (or high school AP statistics) typically has a prerequisite of algebra 2 or intermediate algebra (but not geometry).

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I can’t say how much I love that you do this with your students. Kids have a definite sense if they’re at the top or bottom of an academic group, and they also know when they’re being given a load of B.S. (i.e. false praise/rationale). To have brain development explained to them and to remove any pejorative associations with their present academic levels is a true godsend. I wish that all schools and teachers did this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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I disagree. You’d be teaching your kids to run away from a challenge.

BTW OP, my DD was in a similar situation with AP Calc BC her junior year — the class wasn’t going well, notoriously tough teacher, etc. We got a great tutor to meet up with DD twice a week, and she was able to do well in the class after initially struggling.

What school is this? IMO every college should have some sort of quantitative class (ie math, stats, CS) as a requirement for graduation.

Could be Amherst, Grinnell, Smith, or Wesleyan.

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There are distribution requirements she has to fulfill. They classify the math department as Natural Sciences and Math, along with bio, chem, CS, physics/astronomy, geology, physical geography, and psych/neuroscience. Each of the classes that fulfill the requirement (which is not every class within a department) does incorporate quantitative methodologies. Students just are not required to take an entire semester of Differential Equations…

Could also be Hamilton, Colgate or Vassar

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Students shouldn’t be required to take an entire semester of Diffy Q, but they should be required to take an entire semester of CS and Stats. They are crucial to understanding the modern world.

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