There are lots of cooperation in math competitions. Kids don’t compete with friends in the same math club. They collaborate to solve hard problems, provide different solutions, help to think how to attack problems. AoPS is an example of collaboration. Kids post solutions, propose problems, discuss how they think, and share resources. Kids won’t make progress in math competitions if they don’t collaborate.
Another creative math competition is Bay Area Math Olympiad. Kids don’t have to live in the Bay to take the annual exam. They can ask a local school or a local math club to proctor the exam.The advantage of living in the Bay area is to participate in the Berkekey Math Circle. Among the math competition activities, my son loved BAMO most.
"The loss of self esteem among girls from math competitions is a fact " This isn’t really pertinent, since the OP has a son. But it is of interest anyhow. My understanding is that the phenomenon of girls losing confidence in their STEM abilities is far more widespread than simply among girls who compete in math. I seem to recall studies showing that girls have less self-confidence even though they are getting significantly better grades than the boys.
The math competitions can cut either way. You seem to be assuming the girls lose confidence because they aren’t doing well. It’s probably true that they are more likely to lose confidence if this happens. But what about the girls who do do well?
One of my daughter’s friends was concerned about the difficulty of an honors stem program at our school. I was actually able to say to her, why are you so worried about how hard that will be? Who do you think the other students will be? They are here at this math competition and you just beat them all.
I’m not a big fan either, as I think most people are better served by learning a living language. But I want to put in a plug for Latin nevertheless. My math guy (not as mathy as OP’s kid) took Latin through AP Latin. He liked that as a shy kid there was no pressure to actually speak it and that the emphasis is all on translating Latin to English and much, much less vice versa. The intricacies of the grammar went well with the way he thinks. He hates traveling. There is some research that suggests that students who take Latin do better on the SAT CR.
No comments on the math except to agree that you can’t really plan four years at once. My kid got more interested in programming than pure math.
I liked the Middle School MathCounts competitions which did involve teams solving problems together. Our son’s team was half girls.
The OP’s kid should make sure they have a year of world history and a year of American History. That will give them a minimum for most colleges. But they should be aware that some colleges will prefer to see more.
FYI. Take nevada7711’s comments with a huge grain of salt; he’s a t-word and is not longer a member. Unfortunately, deleting his posts will result in many subsequent posts no longer making sense.
Actually, Latin makes a lot of sense for a future English major especially when complemented with French. If your son likes the way Latin works, he may enjoy Greek (the alpabet’s really easy and the grammar is more fun than Latin IMHO) or German. For a math major knowing French or Russian (or both) is quite useful. Russian is hard though hbut who knows your son may like the challenge (not as a class, just to look into). You really should look into your university’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th semester French classes, especially those with a civilization/culture focus. He could always take a “history of France” or “history of the roman world” that would meet both objectives of language and social science. Its not necessary considering his planned schedule, just a suggestion if he s interested at any time.
A lot of kids take Latin in our high school because it’s considered the “easy language” to take. Kids who have a hard time dealing with spoken languages don’t have to worry about listening exams, etc. There are several careers which branch out of having a strong knowledge of Latin, so I don’t think it’s impractical at all.
He did want to take some Greek courses at the extension school. I didn’t allow it, as that’s just way too much of load. He can take it in college. Unfortunately there aren’t any courses like History of France. There’s French 4 (enough for AP) and then there is French 5 (that includes a live enactment of a Moliere drama, so it’s pretty cool!).
For History, if he were to do the usual trio of World, US, Europe, he would have to take World History in grades 9 and 10, US in 11, and Europe in 12. There’s no room for history in grade 9 as he is taking two languages and I won’t allow him to take an extra course (nor does he want to). So he is limited to taking US History for 2 years (grades 10 and 11) and then European History in 12, and will have to miss out on World History. I guess he can self study and take the AP, but then I think he will be better served (education wise, not college admissions wise) by taking the economics duo in grade 12.
I actually think French is easier for him than Latin. He went to an International School from ages 3-12 so got a thorough French immersion experience for 10 years. He is quite fluent in French. Naturally he wants to do 4 years of French and Latin, which I think is very smart to manage the workload. That and math are the 3 easy courses. English and science are moderate, as while the content is easy, there’s still a lot of writing. The hard course for him will be History which is a combination of memorization and writing. The sports waiver makes room for arts EC, and life is good!
Because latin is easy wouldn’t be sufficient justification in my book to miss out on world history. Unless he can say to you, “it’s my dream to read all this literature in the original latin”, or “I might want to become a classical archeologist”, I would push the world history.
But if he’s already fluent in French, why on earth is he taking all those years of French? Boring waste of time. Even for gifted kids who are not fluent the lower level language courses move at a glacial pace. Why not start him at the AP level next year? That opens up room for world history and something else–maybe the latin if that’s what he really wants. Personally I think it would make more sense to learn a language that might be useful for both his interests. German?
Better yet, just skip French2, take the world history in grade 9, and resume with French 4 or 5 next year or when he can schedule it.
Also, as a parent, I’d be concerned about a sports waiver for arts (never heard of a school doing this; our school doesn’t even waive PE for year round varsity athletes). I hope he’s getting some exercise when he isn’t doing that sport.
I think differently. I think it is important to have easy courses and a decent education-life balance. Languages are not his passion, so why should he kill himself to get advanced in languages? As I have been saying for a while, I think US kids are under way more pressure than the rest of the world, and I don’t think that’s healthy. I always took easy courses myself (physics and math), and used the spare time that it opened up to chase girls.
Let me use an analogy. He already knows calculus pretty well, so I can ask the school to skip that, have him take a placement test, and put him into MV Calc and Differential equations (he knows Linear Algebra pretty well too). But, then what? In 10th grade he takes real analysis, 11th he takes topology and discrete math, and in 12th he takes abstract algebra and complex analysis? (You can rearrange these.) Would you recommend that? I suspect you won’t, and by the same logic why push languages as well? Easy courses are good, I think.
Regarding the sports waiver, the beauty of a good private school is that they are willing to craft a curriculum that suits each kid. After all, they only have about 100 kids, a ridiculous tuition (more expensive than Harvard), and 20 kids per GC. It is really not practical for a kid to be playing sports 7 hours each week AND pursuing an arts EC. It’s not possible to do everything in life. Prioritization is key.
Could you maybe fit a class in there that your child would actually have a good time in? Something to give him a break? This all seems a bit excessive for high school. He still is a kid.
“Languages are not his passion, so why should he kill himself to get advanced in languages?” Your reasoning is flawed. He won’t learn a thing in French 2 and 3. So French 4 won’t be any easier for him with those courses than without them. In fact, it’s well known that the brain is best equipped to learn languages at young ages, in contrast to something like math where most kids are still developing. AP French could be harder for him by the time he gets there.
You’ve already said that he has plenty of time for surfing the web. The only relevant question is whether he is working too hard. If there are tons of students out there who are doing more than they can comfortably handle, that is unfortunate, but it’s irrelevant to whether your son should waste 2 years sitting in French classes and learning nothing. And he will hardly be killing himself taking AP French. The other kids in the class will still be far less fluent than he is after all those years.
It seems to me that if he were your kid you would push, push, and push him some more. I really don’t think that’s healthy, Mathyone. Don’t push your kids that much. Let them enjoy life the way they want to. Surfing the web is an excellent use of time in my book. While he is learning all kinds of nonsense from Tumblr, at least he is also getting a keen sense of social justice.
To humor you, I will pull the thread a bit.
There are total of 24 credits he can take. I won’t allow him to take extra classes. English, of course, will go on for 4 years, same as math. Latin will be for 4 years as well. Arts will be for 2 years. Science will be for at least 3 (graduation requirement). That takes care of 17 credits, with 7 left in hand. You are suggesting shortening French to 2 years. He is certainly capable of doing that. That leaves 5 credits in hand. Now, 1 can go to science and 4 can go to history, and voila! He has 4 credits each of English, Math, Science, History, 6 credits in languages, and 2 in arts. A perfect “well-rounded” kid who colleges would love, right?
But that also means he has to study something he doesn’t want to viz. one extra credit in history and one in science. Also, his workload goes up. What would be your rationale to do that?
CaliCash, I didn’t create the course schedule, my son did. He will have fun in math and english I think. The languages are easy courses to get to a low workload - that’s the break according to him. Science and history will be painful for him, but the school requires that for graduation. I personally think that’s stupid, that kids who don’t want to study science or history should be allowed to opt out, but I don’t run the school.
What did you mean by good time and break? What course would you suggest? I will pass it on to my son. Thank you?
Actually you are wrong. There is a difference between pushing and not wanting them to waste time or be bored. Remember I was the one concerned about how fast you were putting him through college math.
I let my kids make their own course selections and their choices have not always been mine. I can think offhand of about 7 cases where our thoughts differed. In one case I wanted my child to take a language class she didn’t want to do. I think it was a missed opportunity but I didn’t force her. (She took a study hall she didn’t really need that year). In all the rest of the cases, my kids wanted to take something harder or extra, I tried to talk them out of it, and they insisted. If I had pushed her, my 9th grader would be in calculus this year. She’s not, because I respected her relative lack of interest in math and didn’t want her to have to work hard at something that wasn’t a priority for her. But I think there’s a middle ground between having to work hard and learning absolutely nothing. I did push her somewhat, such that she wouldn’t be completely bored out of her mind while still getting 100’s with little effort. And she has time to work on her first novel while still learning and making progress in math without stressing about it.
Well, for one, it’s not me who is putting him fast through college math. It’s him. My only contract with him is that as long as he gets 9.5 hours of sleep per night he can do whatever he wants and I will facilitate that in terms of money and logistics, no questions asked.
The main obstacle to getting enough sleep is music. I did a back of the envelope calculation and it seems to me that he spends about 15 hours on music each week. That’s a ridiculously high commitment in my book. In fact, nearly all the late nights he has had this year were to finish a composition on time to submit by the due date, and the rest were when he was practicing before a piano competition. Now, some of this is unavoidable, but I believe that most reasonable things can be managed if he plans well. It is not feasible in my book to plan an extra 15 hours into the week, so this year I will make him drop cello and orchestra and focus on only piano and composition, which should cut down the weekly time commitment by about half. All of which will come from the sports waiver, which he was not allowed in middle school.
Similarly, to meet the sleeping commitment plus Skyping, Tumblring, and Spotifying, he needs easy classes in school for which he won’t have to study hard. Is that wasting time? Perhaps, but don’t blame me for that - why does he have to take 6 courses in the first place when many other countries require just 5? If there was no requirement to take the course, then his time won’t be wasted. But if the requirement is there, and he has to take something, then he might as well take courses for which he will be bored in class, yes, but for which he also won’t have to study hard.
How is my logic flawed? My objective function is a manageable workload and only doing things that one likes. Yours is different. My logic is compatible with my objective function. You can’t asses it against yours. That’s comparing apples to oranges.
Is he sure that physics will be painful for him at the level where it is mostly math? He may have disliked conceptual physics, and still find that he really likes it when it is calculus-based.
Ynotgo, he doesn’t find is hard (got the usual A+ in 7th grade), he finds it boring as he is a really abstract thinker and physical things doesn’t come naturally to him. But I do agree with you. If he could skip the basic problems of firing rockets and spinning motors, and could go straight to theoretical physics, I think he would have loved it.