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Conversely, when I was in 6th grade, I begged and pleaded with my parents to try a new distance learning pilot program our state was doing. They allowed me to d
by aphextron 6y ago
Conversely, when I was in 6th grade, I begged and pleaded with my parents to try a new distance learning pilot program our state was doing. They allowed me to do it for 7th grade, and the lack of oversight and discipline led to me being a complete year behind in mathematics when I went back to regular school for the 8th grade. I never recovered, and ended up dropping out 2 years later.
Sure there is redundancy in elementary education. But middle and high school kids missing out on a year of math can be fatal. Smart determined kids can make it up. But the vast majority will be completely lost.
- dimator 6y agoMissing any math in any year is a disaster. There is a real continuity in math teaching starting from addition through high school. I've seen so many people who gave up early on, and they have _no hope_ of making it up later on.
- ghaff 6y agoAnd it continues beyond. I tutored in a graduate business program. And math was absolutely the stumbling block for the students I was tutoring. It was all pretty simple stuff. Graphs for economics, solving equations, very simple differentials to find maxima or minima (didn't really need to understand calculus because these were such simple cases), etc. They were pretty much all totally lost. It was really frustrating for everyone. I just wasn't in a position to basically teach them a few years of high school math from zero foundation. And you'll see the same pattern in pretty much any of the books written over the years about the challenges the author faced in the first year of their MBA program.
- gbear605 6y agoThe thing is, you can 100% learn the gap if some is missed. The problem comes when the gap isn't filled at all and then the prerequisites for future material aren't there. I don't think that will be the case with the current situation.