<p>Yeah, S1 derived multiplication in K, figured out “short division” the following year – set up like long div, only he didn’t drop the numbers down as he went. In third grade, his HW was to bring in a numerical sequence so the kids in the class could figure it out. He forgot to do it, so when he was called upon, he went up to the board and wrote down the Fibonacci sequence, only to be told by the teacher, “That’s not a sequence!” He then explained it and went off on a riff about Fibonacci numbers in Jacob’s Triangle. Drove his teachers crazy back then.</p>
<p>Programming started in 4th grade, first with a simple website and then to programming games on his TI-83. In class. Instead of paying attention or turning in his English HW. ;)</p>
<p>S1 had functions as a 12 yo 8th grader and got tossed from the class for having a B average. (The HS teacher did not want younger students in her class without at least a B+.) While this class was called Functions, it was was Alg II/Trig/Pre-Calc and a good bit of Calc AB rolled into one year. Fast and intense. Since we knew by then he was likely going to study LOTS more math, and we knew he’d need a strong foundation in this course, and it was three days before his Bar Mitzvah when he was tossed, we did not object. The following year he took the same class and aced it. The teacher told me that the abstract thinking part just needed to kick in a little more. </p>
<p>In our school system, the explicit expectation (as articulated by the central office and the teachers) is that parents are responsible for teaching their kids the multiplication tables. That was not a problem for our family, but for families where parents are working the evening/night shift to put food on the table or the parents were not well-educated themselves, one can see where kids start to fall behind. The reality was also that I bought Jacobs’ Algebra I (oldie but good REAL Alg I) and used it to work with S2 through his Alg II course. While S1 got the Cadillac Algebra in his math/science program, S2 was in the humanities program and got the regular honors version. The difference was night and day. S2 also got the big concepts (and applied them in places we never would have expected), but got hung up on the stupid piddly math mistakes, as he put it.</p>
<p>I had New Math, too. A friend of mine picked up a math workbook at a used bookstore and gave it to me year ago for S1. It was the same workbook I had in third grade! What a flashback.</p>
<p>Was it the Singapore New Math? Their Pure math was very good (pre-calc and a lot of other things). Had it around as a resource rather than for instruction.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t consider Singapore Math to be a New Math curriculum. I do like their materials though. Our kids used the 2nd to 5th grade materials. I’d guess that the average high-school student would have a pretty tough time with the 5th grade materials.</p>
<p>D is HS freshman and will have pre-calc next year, and AP Calc AB junior year. Her school does not offer AP Calc BC or anything beyond, but the state of Michigan requires a math class in the senior year (totaling 4 math credits). Her 7th and 8th grade math classes earned her high school math credit, so she will end up with 6 math credits. I’m sure she will find some sort of math class to take (Stats, Accounting, etc.) but if she plans to continue Calc in college, it will be difficult not to have continuous study. And if she knows by senior year that she is not going to pursue math in college, it would be nice to have that extra slot for another science or foreign language or something.</p>
<p>mathinokc: if Michigan is the same as TN, then it doesn’t matter how many HS math classes the kids took in MS, they still need 4 years of math in high school. This is a new req starting with the graduating class of 2013 (my D2’s class.) D1s class had a number of kids who 2 math classes in MS, then bailed out of math their junior & senior years. That’s no longer permissible.</p>
<p>Several states have these requirements, mathinokc. DD1 had AP Calc BC her sophomore year, took AP Stats her junior year, and then took some “filler” math class (in which she was terribly bored) her senior year. She had the option of taking a course at the local junior college, but she wanted to try to have a “normal” senior year of high school and didn’t want to deal with the hassle of a college level class. I was also concerned about the amount of time between when she’d had calculus and when she resumed it (at the next level) in college. She was able to pick up where she left off and still earn A’s in college. She’s a science person…she uses very complicated math in all her physics and astro classes now, but was relieved when she completed her math class requirements in college…ha, she always said she didn’t enjoy doing math just for the sake of doing math! If it has come easy for your daughter so far, she’ll be fine. (FWIW, DD made it clear that AP Stats is not “real” math!)</p>
<p>I’ve been watching this thread as it has evolved. I certainly don’t agree with parents pushing their kids to go to a higher math early on, but when you have a 6th grader who is so incredibly bored with what everyone else is doing in school (and particularly math), you consider it a real blessing when you are able to get them in advanced math to keep them challenged. We moved to a different state when DD1 was a sophomore, and it took some effort to explain to the new school that yes—she really WAS ready to take AP Calc as a sophomore (although she really missed the 6 other kids aka “Math Nerds” who’d been with her in classes from 6th grade thru 9th grade, including walking over to the high school from the middle school for math). She hasn’t slowed down yet!</p>
<p>BCEagle, We used Singapore 3rd-6th with S2 to get him prepared for the math if he wound up at the math/science program (he’s more science than math). We found Singapore was two years ahead of the local standard math curriculum. As for word problems…S2 seldom saw those in elem or middle school math. Singapore was good for that, too.</p>
<p>Woody, not all school systems handle subject acceleration in the same way. Some school systems do a great job of it; others don’t. Our experience was that the quality of math instruction varied wildly depending on the school/program. Sometimes we have to spill a little detail to give a useful example. Sorry if it sounded like bragging. There was just a HUGE disconnect between what S1 was doing at home for fun (and wanting to do in class) vs. what the primary grade teachers were willing to offer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation. In Oklahoma, a high school credit is a high school credit, no matter when you earn it. So, if the graduation requirements are 4 credits of math and you took Algebra I in 8th grade, then you only have to take 3 math classes in high school.</p>
<p>^^^Yup. That’s how it used to be here (and will continue for the graduating class of 2012.) What I heard prompted the change was that some of the top math kids got burned out & dropped math for their junior and/or senior years and then got to college and oops! they had forgotten a lot of math. And supposedly it wasn’t looked upon very well by the colleges either, because kids who shouldn’t have needed remedial math in college did based on their placement testing. </p>
<p>Up through the class of 2012 the requirements were: 3 high school math classes (didn’t have to be taken in HS; if you took Algebra & Geometry & passed the End of Course classes in middle school then technically you only had to take algebra II as a freshman and be done) including Algebra I, Geometry or Technical Geometry, and Algebra II. Starting with the class of 2013 the requirements are: “Students must earn four credits in math in high school. Math courses taken in middle school will serve to accelerate a students level of math but will not substitute for the four years required in high school. Students must take Algebra I, Geometry or Tech Geometry, Algebra II, and one course beyond the Algebra II level.” </p>
<p>Now what I’ve heard is that they’re going to start offering an Algebra II A and Algebra II B to be spread between 11th & 12th grade so that the kids who are not as strong in math will still be able to succeed. And the Algebra II B class would count as the “one course beyond Algebra II” level. While there are a small number of students/parents who struggle to have their child challenged in math, there are a large number of students who have no interest/talent in going beyond geometry.</p>
<p>The requirement here is four years of math, including algebra and geometry. Students who complete a calculus course are exempt from the four-year requirement. HS courses taken in middle school credits count. The reality was that the GCs told the college-bound kids (whether community college, state school or Ivy) to take four years of math in HS, period. The high schools here are big enough that there were options beyond geometry that don’t necessarily involve AP (Alg II, pre-calc, non-AP calc, AP (or non-AP) Stat, accounting, personal finance, etc.).</p>
<p>What does “2-3 grades ahead” even mean? A better question is, “why is it expected that it should take 12 years (6-8 years in school depending on whether you go to kindergarten/pre-school) to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division?” </p>
<p>Maybe it’s more common to see students 2-3 grades ahead because they hardly teach anything in the first 6 grades.</p>
<p>in new york your highschool math course selection is based of these things called regents’. once you take one regents you move on to the next level. Since regents are offered multiple times during the year, they can take all the regents early and get into BC calc by sophmore year(which is mad crazy but this year in my hs we have 6 people in bc calc from soph year and 3 people from my year(junior) in the same class. it seems it keeps on getting common each year. i plan on doing the same thing when i have a child of my own(as much as she/he will hate it)</p>
<p>RobD, what math will be offered for the really advanced kids who have taken Calculus as a Sophomore or Junior? How are they supposed to get 4 full years?</p>
<p>Sometimes you have to do weird stuff after learning the material, just to meet official high school graduation and/or college admission requirements. My son taught himself BC Calculus sophomore year because he was bored in precalculus. After he took the AP test and got a 5, he found out he couldn’t get credit for algebra, which he had taken in 7th grade, because he had attended a charter school. Thus, he took an online AP Calculus BC class over the summer as a replacement, so he could get the needed 4 credits in math. Later he discovered that he couldn’t apply for his school’s $2500 alumni math scholarship unless he was enrolled in a math class his final year. So he’s now taking AP Calculus AB. He takes the tests, but otherwise uses his class time to prep for math team, or tutor his classmates; sometimes he gets a pass from the teacher and goes over and tutors people in the AP Stats class.</p>
<p>Seems like ridiculous policies. Math requirements for high school graduation, university admissions, and scholarships should really be specified in terms of level of math completed, rather than “N years of math in high school”. A student who aces AP Calculus BC should be considered to have completed any reasonable high school math requirement.</p>
<p>Could your son have taken multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations at a community college and fulfill those requirements that way?</p>
<p>The community college didn’t have any advanced math courses scheduled for evenings or weekends when he would be able to attend. My son’s calc teacher, who is head of the department, looked into having my son take an advanced online class. But the school has no budget for this and we can’t afford the $1600 fee to pay for it.</p>
<p>Of course he could study Calc III easily enough on his own, it would be easier than searching Google for ways to solve the more obscure math team competition problems (the math organization, not AMC/AIME, provides the questions and answers to old tests, but never HOW to solve them). However, I have found that tutoring his peers in calculus, stats, college algebra, AP physics and AP bio has done a lot for him socially as well as academically – teaching a subject is much harder than just knowing it because you often need to wrap your mind around a different way of perceiving the facts.</p>