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Program so accelerated that 8th-graders take AP Calculus. Will that work?

3 points by password4321 4y ago

password4321 4y ago
https://archive.ph/JuTAV https://archive.ph/JuTAV
Bostonian 4y ago
It will work for a small fraction of high-IQ kids, especially those who are talented and very interested in math. That's not a reason to discard the program. Parents of such children should know of https://artofproblemsolving.com/ https://artofproblemsolving.com/.
- password4321 4y ago
  Thank you for sharing an alternative! It hasn't been mentioned on HN for several years; several good discussions on learning math: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=artofproblemsolving%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate https://hn.algolia.com/?query=artofproblemsolving%20comments...
ohiovr 4y ago
Great opportunity for a rant: Anyone can take college courses in high school for free under post secondary enrollment. Unless that is no longer the case, it was the case for me in 1992. I took a couple courses on DC circuits all for free when I was in 10th or 11th grade. I just had to pay for books. Now 8th grade is just a year shy of high school. Why not just go to college to learn calculus? Calculus would be a lot easier to learn if teachers focused on real problems that it solves. Even if the student doesn't join the field of study where those problems are illuminated in, the student will know how the approach is used. In high school my math classes were about 60% abstract except for a few "word problems" which were often poorly written and of low quality (complex math for stupid problems no one has). Except for Geometry, which was a class I loved because the teacher's examples were all useful to me then and later in life.
- password4321 4y ago
  > Calculus would be a lot easier to learn if teachers focused on real problems that it solves. That's true! I'm not certain if this specific program has much focus on real problems or not.
rdtwo 4y ago
I mean it would work fine for the top 10% and the rest probably don’t need calculus anyway
- jfengel 4y ago
  At least, the top 10% of math learners. There's nothing wrong with students who don't want to get into math beyond algebra. (Algebra is a crucial life skill, at least as long as you stick to the actually useful parts rather than veering into abstractions that matter only to those 10%.) It's too bad that we're stuck with a dilemma: either track students early, missing some people and misdirecting others, or don't track them at all, missing potential excellence. I don't think you can avoid that dilemma entirely, but I do think you can take a guess and say "You don't seem to be enjoying the kind of math that leads in the direction of calculus, how about we put more effort into things that might be more fulfilling to you."

3 points by password4321 4y ago

https://archive.ph/JuTAV https://archive.ph/JuTAV

It will work for a small fraction of high-IQ kids, especially those who are talented and very interested in math. That's not a reason to discard the program. Parents of such children should know of https://artofproblemsolving.com/ https://artofproblemsolving.com/.

password4321 4y ago
Thank you for sharing an alternative! It hasn't been mentioned on HN for several years; several good discussions on learning math: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=artofproblemsolving%20comments%3E0&sort=byDate https://hn.algolia.com/?query=artofproblemsolving%20comments...

ohiovr 4y ago

Great opportunity for a rant: Anyone can take college courses in high school for free under post secondary enrollment. Unless that is no longer the case, it was the case for me in 1992. I took a couple courses on DC circuits all for free when I was in 10th or 11th grade. I just had to pay for books. Now 8th grade is just a year shy of high school. Why not just go to college to learn calculus? Calculus would be a lot easier to learn if teachers focused on real problems that it solves. Even if the student doesn't join the field of study where those problems are illuminated in, the student will know how the approach is used. In high school my math classes were about 60% abstract except for a few "word problems" which were often poorly written and of low quality (complex math for stupid problems no one has). Except for Geometry, which was a class I loved because the teacher's examples were all useful to me then and later in life.

password4321 4y ago
> Calculus would be a lot easier to learn if teachers focused on real problems that it solves. That's true! I'm not certain if this specific program has much focus on real problems or not.

rdtwo 4y ago

I mean it would work fine for the top 10% and the rest probably don’t need calculus anyway

jfengel 4y ago
At least, the top 10% of math learners. There's nothing wrong with students who don't want to get into math beyond algebra. (Algebra is a crucial life skill, at least as long as you stick to the actually useful parts rather than veering into abstractions that matter only to those 10%.) It's too bad that we're stuck with a dilemma: either track students early, missing some people and misdirecting others, or don't track them at all, missing potential excellence. I don't think you can avoid that dilemma entirely, but I do think you can take a guess and say "You don't seem to be enjoying the kind of math that leads in the direction of calculus, how about we put more effort into things that might be more fulfilling to you."