[HN Gopher] How fast should you accelerate your kid in math?
___________________________________________________________________
How fast should you accelerate your kid in math?
Author : sebg
Score : 40 points
Date : 2023-07-29 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kidswholovemath.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kidswholovemath.substack.com)
| graycat wrote:
| Early calculus in 60 seconds: Consider a car with a speedometer
| that says how fast are moving and an odometer that says how far
| have gone. Given the data from the odometer can find what the
| speedometer values were. That is the first half of calculus,
| _differentiation_. And given the data from the speedometer, can
| find what the odometer values were. That is the second half of
| calculus, _integration_. If start with the odometer values,
| differentiate and get the speedometer values and integrate those
| values, then will get back the odometer values -- that is the
| fundamental theorem of calculus. Differentiation is related to
| subtraction, and integration is related to addition.
|
| Might be able to teach that to kids in the fourth grade.
| raymondh wrote:
| In our case, the main push to accelerate is to get more
| knowledgeable teachers.
|
| While experimenting with number sequences in Excel, our child
| said, "I found e, 2.718281828". When he went to show off his
| discovery, his two math teachers said that they had never heard
| of it before.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| We pay far too little to get people who are very strong at
| math.
|
| This sort of lack of knowledge was not uncommon in my urban
| school district, the only teachers who were truly qualified
| were all doing it as essentially charity work after their high-
| powered careers.
| klyrs wrote:
| As a mathematician with a kid who thinks he loves math (but
| doesn't love effort), I try to expose him to fun math. I also
| casually reveal upcoming concepts (currently negative numbers and
| fractions), so he'll struggle less when his curriculum demands
| it. But I never push. When he asks for more, I'm always there.
| When his attention wanders, that's my cue to shut up.
| ckz wrote:
| An interesting argument I've heard recently (but haven't yet come
| to a personal conclusion on, so don't take this as an
| endorsement):
|
| Emphasize math for older kids when their brain is better prepared
| for abstraction (some even argue age 10+!). Emphasize language
| and character for younger kids, especially because at _very_
| young ages that's really what they're soaking in anyway.
|
| The logic here being efficiency. An older child can learn in a
| week what a preschooler may drill for months. Cover some math
| facts in primary school to build a strong foundation, but strong
| language skills compound against _all_ education and should come
| first, with a heavier shift to advanced mathematics later in
| schooling.
|
| Again, don't know if I ascribe yet (I was accelerated in math at
| a young age myself) or how this really looks in the real world,
| but definitely an argument that wise people make in good faith.
|
| Probably impossible in a standardized school setting. :)
| jimmychoozyx wrote:
| Some would say Math is a language. And I agree-- teach a 2nd
| language to kids before they reach 12. But I would also want to
| teach my own children advanced math during that time, if
| possible.
|
| From what I've read in passing, it seems some former soviet
| countries of Eastern Europe & Russia teach advanced math to
| students a few years earlier than the US does.
|
| It seems that private South Asian-majority schools in certain
| cities-- such as Houston-- also teach advanced math earlier
| than public schools.
| sn9 wrote:
| Here's an old educational experiment that supports the idea of
| literacy before numeracy:
| http://www.inference.org.uk/sanjoy/benezet/three.html
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Going fast when the child wants to go fast and slow when they
| need to go slow is I think most of what makes one-on-one teaching
| superior to classroom teaching. But, yeah, homeschooling can
| leave a big social gap.
| LanceH wrote:
| > homeschooling can leave a big social gap.
|
| I've been around and tutored way too many homeschoolers to give
| this a pass. If by "gap" you mean they behave in a more adult
| fashion, sure. There is a gap between the independence and
| social progression of homeschoolers and the nature of your
| average trend following high schooler.
|
| Saying that homeschooling creates backwards kids is just a form
| of continued bullying.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| It's not bullying. Give me a break. It's a valid concern. No
| one is picking on people for being homeschooled.
| troupe wrote:
| There are plenty of kids in public schools with and
| creating social problems. There are plenty of kids who
| "graduate" while being functionally illiterate.
|
| So yes it is a concern, but it is a concern for kids in
| general and acting like it is a problem for homeschoolers
| would be like telling kids that "growing up to be stupid is
| a risk for red head children." It is either being done with
| intent to bully red heads or just based on ignorance..
| [deleted]
| klyrs wrote:
| You didn't tutor my cousins' kids. Fresh out of high school,
| they can barely read and write and they get anxious if
| they're more than 10 feet from mom. I would never imply that
| homeschooling is uniform, but it _definitely_ has risks of
| very bad outcomes both socially and academically.
| troupe wrote:
| Your argument would be valid if there is no risk of very
| bad social or academic outcomes at a private or public
| school. But there are kids in the public school system who
| graduate without being able to read and write and it
| doesn't take much to find students with extreme social
| issues.
|
| Perhaps the risks are just inherent in growing up?
| sanderjd wrote:
| Are there programs where kids mostly play with other kids and
| then do the education side a couple hours a day of
| homeschooling individually or in small groups? I feel like that
| would be a nice structure through like middle school.
|
| We have one starting kindergarten in a few weeks and honestly
| it seems like too much school time for a five year old to me.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > But, yeah, homeschooling can leave a big social gap.
|
| It doesn't need to. Many areas, particularly those good for
| homeschooling, have tons of social and extracurricular
| activities available _specifically for homeschoolers_ (such as
| by being intentionally scheduled in the middle what would
| otherwise be school hours).
|
| And, of course, those are just the mass social activities, as
| opposed to small groups of friends.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Public schooling has socializing built in - home schooling
| has focused 1:1 attention built in. (In their ideal state,
| respectively.)
|
| Home schooling takes extra work to add socializing, public
| schooling takes extra work to add one on one instruction.
| _Generally_. There are exceptions out there, and there are
| opportunities to hybridize the practices. But again - that
| takes work.
|
| Public school also functions as a means to take the work of
| watching and educating a child during the day off of parents'
| plates, so they can remain at least partially employed, or
| even just have a small slice of their life back.
|
| Homeschooling is a luxury most can't afford.
| kashunstva wrote:
| > Many areas, particularly those good for homeschooling, have
| tons of social and extracurricular activities available
| specifically for homeschoolers
|
| During the five years I homeschooled my daughter, I found
| that this was true but with one enormous caveat. We're a
| secular family and homeschooling in many areas of the U.S.
| means that these groups are often organized around non-
| secular activities and principles. To each, their own. But
| I'm not going to sign a "statement of faith" to participate
| in a homeschool group. As a consequence, it really did feel
| that we were going it alone. Larger metropolitan areas are
| probably more inclusive; but otherwise secular homeschoolers
| have struggles in finding the right fit.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| In our area there were lots of secular activities
| available, but unfortunately that's not universally true.
|
| Many people select places to live based on school
| districts; it may make sense to put the same amount of
| weight on quality of homeschooling options. But even then,
| that's not going to be universally available in a nearby
| location.
|
| There are also potentially online groups to connect with
| others (even more so now than when I was that age), which
| could help with finding and organizing groups.
| xcskier56 wrote:
| I home schooled for 2 years in middle school I wasn't a social
| butterfly (and still am not). We were part of a home school co-
| op where we went once or twice per week and the parents taught
| various classes.
|
| The kids there were wildly brilliant... 6th grader getting a
| perfect SAT and ACT score, and almost all were very socially
| awkward. But I really doubt that regular school would have
| changed anything and may have made things worse.
|
| The social issue is a chicken vs egg problem. Are the kids
| socially awkward bc they're homeschooled, or are they
| homeschooled bc they're brilliant and very awkward?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > 6th grader getting a perfect SAT and ACT score
|
| Almost certainly an exaggeration :)
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > The social issue is a chicken vs egg problem. Are the kids
| socially awkward bc they're homeschooled, or are they
| homeschooled bc they're brilliant and very awkward?
|
| This is a big annoyance for me in the homeschooling
| conversation. If someone is homeschooled and is socially
| awkward, it's the homeschooling's fault. If someone went to
| public school and is socially awkward, it's their fault /
| they're an outlier.
| ckz wrote:
| The social gap question has been pretty hotly debated for
| decades (whether it exists and/or is even a concern). For the
| curious, here are a couple of relevant threads:
|
| 5 Days Ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36842564
|
| 10 Months Ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32746181
| dbjacobs wrote:
| Like everything else in schooling, the social gap is highly
| child dependent. Our kids were a mix of home-school and private
| schools and the kid who did the most homeschooling was the most
| socially adept.
| dboreham wrote:
| My sons are both in college now, but during the K-12 years I took
| the approach that I could not try to "accelerate" other than by
| offering help with homework. That is, I didn't introduce any
| concepts that would arrive later in their curriculum. Instead, I
| introduced concepts (verbally, while driving to school and so on)
| that would never be covered at the HS level. These included: the
| idea that some things are provably unprovable (e.g. halting
| problem), that some things are provably impossible (e.g.
| constructibility of polygons), that everything in mathematics has
| a history around why it was invented, and a story as to what it's
| useful for, that generally doesn't get taught but can be very
| helpful in appreciating why you might want to learn about it.
| twump wrote:
| My 6 year old is doing basic algebra and geometric proofs and I
| worry it's going to make him bored in math class. But even if my
| kid is a genius it's proven to me that we can be moving our kids
| much faster than we do. I don't think kids in Singapore have
| special DNA.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I had a good time at Russian math circle. It was competition math
| but also math proofs which helped instill rigor as a core
| concept. Which in turn helped when I started programming because
| really a lot of programming is about invariants and proofs of
| sort.
| mattgrice wrote:
| If your child is interested in engineering, and won't be able to
| go to a private school, it is best to have Calc I and II done
| before they go to college. At state schools, Calc is typically a
| weed-out class with huge lectures and they want a certain
| percentage of students to not be successful because these classes
| serve as a gating function to the engineering school. Combined
| with other freshman semester distractions and adjustment it's a
| good idea to have it out of the way.
|
| Other than that I'd say the best acceleration is enrichment.
| Teach stuff like proofs, "how to solve it" by Polya, gain
| intuition about linear algebra and complex numbers. Martin
| Gardner and AK Dewdney articles in old Scientific American
| magazines.
| tzs wrote:
| > Martin Gardner and AK Dewdney articles in old Scientific
| American magazines
|
| All of Gardner's Scientific American columns are conveniently
| available on CD-ROM for under $40 [1].
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0883855453
| epups wrote:
| That's a great deal. Unfortunately CD ROMs have not been
| convenient for like a decade...
| tzs wrote:
| Here it is as ebooks [1]. $99 ($74.25 for MAA and AMS
| members). On sale for $59.40. I think the sale price is
| just for MAA and ASM members).
|
| [1] https://bookstore.ams.org/gardner-set/
| fn-mote wrote:
| This is such a fraught topic.
|
| First point: a lot of students get "accelerated" by their parents
| as a way of improving their academic performance and aiming the
| toward an elite college. Of course you look outstanding in school
| if you have covered the material a year before at the local cram
| center. These "accelerated by rote" students memorized the
| multiplication tables early, so they were put in "advanced
| math"... but their rate of comprehension is ordinary. Their
| problem solving skills are ordinary. They took "advanced math" in
| summer school so when they take the course in the ordinary school
| year they have a leg up. I don't think this has to be bad, but
| it's not the "gifted acceleration" and can be tough on these
| students if expectations are that they are "fast".
|
| A second point: acceleration traditionally means moving through
| the same material faster. If you have a gifted child PLEASE work
| with them on a breadth of things, don't just race them through
| multivariable calculus. Math contests are a good source of
| broader problems. Art of Problem Solving gets a huge shout-out
| for what is now years and years of acceleration and enrichment
| material. Look at them if you are a parent in this situation.
| (Actually, they are suitable for self-study.)
|
| Edit: I am all in favor of kids learning new things as fast as
| they want. I don't see racing through the standard curriculum (in
| any country) as a route to happiness.
|
| Random brain-stimulating math book: Donald Knuth, "Surreal
| Numbers".
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _First point: a lot of students get "accelerated" by their
| parents as a way of improving their academic performance and
| aiming the toward an elite college.
|
| ...
|
| I don't think this has to be bad, but it's not the "gifted
| acceleration" and can be tough on these students if
| expectations are that they are "fast"._
|
| Their parents don't care, on the contrary they want it to be
| tough on their kids. They aren't interested in raising happy,
| well adjusted kids. What they want is rich kids (that marry the
| correct spouses.)
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Their parents don't care
|
| Pretty presumptive.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| The thing speaks for itself.
| pgustafs wrote:
| I think problem solving math is definitely fun and can be a
| huge source of confidence, but I don't see why "racing" through
| the standard curriculum is a negative. Why should a smart kid
| do a million multiplication/division problems for 5 years when
| they would have a ton more fun and get a lot more long-term
| utility from learning some stat/algebra/geometry? If a kid
| demonstrates mastery of a concept, it's a lot more bizarre and
| potentially damaging to force them to relearn the same material
| over and over.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think it's more that there are massive large fields of math
| that are just left out in the race to calculus.
|
| I had a friend who grew up in Japan and he said he learned a
| lot more number theory-style stuff.
| [deleted]
| pgustafs wrote:
| Agree, but I don't like the framing of "accelerating." Math in
| school is for the median student. If you want a quantitative
| career or just want to have quantitative skills, you should be
| aiming for way above median. Aiming for median outcomes makes
| zero sense in the current world. Find your niche and hit it hard.
|
| Kids intuitively understand this -- they like doing what they're
| good at. Unfortunately, most schools are not good at serving this
| need. A very important part of being a parent is to encourage
| kids to start compounding positive habits/learning early, and to
| prevent the schools from dragging them back to the median.
| gpt5 wrote:
| I think that many parents fall into the trap of acceleration to
| address their kids need to be challenged. While acceleration help
| mitigate some unnecessary repetition, by definition acceleration
| cannot go deeper than the standard curriculum, and deeper is
| where things become interesting and where you develop
| mathematical thinkers.
|
| My children attend a school district where the norm is enrolling
| kids in after-school math programs. According to the standardized
| tests run by the school, about 50% of the students are pacing a
| full grade ahead.
|
| The school does offer an option to skip a grade in math, but the
| pass rate is a mere 10%. While the skip test covers the standard
| material, it does so with trickier questions, tripping up many
| students. They're moving fast, but without much depth.
|
| What I found works best is to pick a challenging and exciting
| curriculum that allows talented students to immerse themselves
| and experience the excitement and satisfaction of intellectual
| discovery. There are a few examples of such programs. The most
| popular of which is the curriculum offered by AoPS (art of
| problem solving), which starts at first grade. Following this
| path naturally offers a large advantage to learning at the
| highest levels. If they are still moving faster with the rigorous
| curriculum - sure, let them accelerate.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| I am a strong believer of :
|
| - There is no depth in math without understanding properly our
| own language.
|
| - One cannot master anything without actually writing stuff.
| jibe wrote:
| Accelerate is a misnomer, it is the go deeper, advanced track.
| There might be a one time jump ahead, but that's not the heart
| of it.
| mabbo wrote:
| > The school does offer an option to skip a grade in math, but
| the pass rate is a mere 10%
|
| I ran into trouble with this as a kid. They put me ahead a
| grade in math in grade 2 because I could handle it and the
| class was a 2/3 split (half grade 2s, half 3s), so I just did
| math with the grade 3s. This worked going forward as there were
| 3/4 and 4/5 split classes at the school too.
|
| But then after a couple years, I was reaching the point where
| the school only went to grade 5 and the teachers didn't even
| have books for grade 6s.
|
| So they skipped me entirely ahead a grade. Into a new school
| (since the previous school only went to 5). With none of my
| friends.
|
| My other subjects suffered because I was only really good at
| math. My social life died- kids are assholes at that age and
| pull each other down. And my mental health was pretty messed up
| for a long time. I wound up taking an extra year of high school
| just so I wouldn't be in college at 17.
| lanstin wrote:
| I took 3,4, 5 and 6th grade math in 3rd grade. taught my self
| algebra and some easy calculus in 4 and 5th grade, then I went to
| math camp in 7th grade where i got credit for algebra 1 and 2 and
| took geometry and trig and precalc (passing some standardized
| test for each module). my school let me take BC calculus in 8th
| grade and then go to night school for math for 9th thru 12th
| grade. i was otherwise unaccelerated and had a pretty normal
| teenager hood.
|
| i highly recommend it, especially for math where there is so much
| to learn; even by the end of undergrad, the newest math i was
| learning was from the 1950s and 1960s. plus it makes a lot of
| other things a lot easier to study. and it's fun to learn hard
| math; the years when i had to study math i already knew where
| really dull.
| geniium wrote:
| Other than that, what's ur story?
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| This is very easy to answer:
|
| Design toys and environments for them that promote the
| development of infinity category theoretical intuitions. Let them
| decide the pace from there.
| viraptor wrote:
| I really like the idea of unrestricted learning (as long as it
| actually checks that you master the material). I remember reading
| a university level physics book and getting lots of fun math from
| it while in high school.
|
| Currently (many years later) I'm going through the
| https://mathacademy.com/ ML course to get good foundations in
| that area. But the service itself starts at very basic math and
| allows you to go as fast as you want all the way to uni courses
| (with lots of practice and reviews), so I'm hoping to use it with
| my kid in the future.
| albntomat0 wrote:
| What're your thoughts on MathAcademy? I heard about it here on
| HN several months ago, and it's been on my list of things to
| check out, once I finish my current two side projects.
| viraptor wrote:
| Love it, 4 months into math for ML with a review of some
| earlier topics. It's actually almost entirely about practice
| in small chunks, which is different from many other services
| I've seen. (Means no sitting through longer videos /
| explanations) Basically it's what I would've really liked my
| school math to be. Each question is only a couple of minutes
| or so, so I really appreciate being able to do it here and
| there when possible, instead of having to dedicate full hours
| to the course. I've been following it being developed for
| years hoping to use it with my kid, but ended up using it
| myself first.
| [deleted]
| seeknotfind wrote:
| As fast as your kid wants should be taken into account, but like,
| if your kid is alienating themselves, maybe take them to a
| baseball game. If your kid hates math, the answer isn't not
| teaching them at all. :D
|
| Personally, I loved math, would have loved to be accelerated, but
| I didn't know this was something I could ask for and get.
| mlyle wrote:
| A lot of the reason why your kid might be alienating themselves
| is being thrown into an environment where they're a couple
| standard deviations outside the mean and have to confront
| tedious busywork.
|
| It's hard for many people to accept, but kids who are a couple
| sigma above the mean can end up having nearly as much problems
| in an inflexible academic environment from kids who are a
| couple sigma below.
|
| My eldest is a very high performer who had behavioral issues in
| upper elementary. A whole lot of getting him to the point where
| he's maximally successful with peers, in other classrooms, and
| in sports and other endeavors was getting him into situations
| with appropriate challenge and opportunities for expression.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Yeah I don't always buy it when people advocate for very lax
| education. I was part of the upperclass-hippie parenting
| experiment, and in retrospect I suspect it hurt me far more
| than it helped. Given the choice I would always watch cartoons,
| play video games, and cheat the system all I could. It clearly
| works for some kids though.
| markoutso wrote:
| I keep wondering how articles make it up to the first page. This
| one, for example, an article hosted by substack. A service with
| terrible user interface, that tries to make you think that
| someone is doing you a favour for letting you read their
| literature without paying, whereas... the opposite is true.
|
| The article itself is irrelevant but since I read it, I can tell
| that it is a classical nonsensical piece on the benefits of
| listening to children. The author lacks any formal qualification
| on teaching from what I could also find.
|
| In other terms a complete time waster.
| doix wrote:
| When I was a kid (elementary school) I ended up in the remedial
| maths class. My parents were shocked because at home they were
| teaching me things far beyond what was taught at school.
|
| I have no recollection of any of this, but apparently I was just
| a little shit and refused to answer questions at school because
| they were "too easy" and "boring".
|
| Not sure what the moral of the story is, but consider the second
| order effects of accelerating your kids.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| I don't think you were being a little shit. I think that's a
| perfectly reasonable reaction to being asked to jump through
| arbitrary hoops that were meaningless to you.
| r00fus wrote:
| LOL I was in remedial math in 5th grade in one (red) state and
| winning math competitions by grade 7 in another state.
|
| Bored to tears and misdiagnosed capabilities...
| stuaxo wrote:
| I was really impressed at Number Blocks, which my daughter and
| friends were all watching from Nursery age on BBC iplayer at
| home. By age 4 she already had an idea about square numbers and
| infinity. I honestly wish Number Blocks went all the way up to
| university level.
| MandieD wrote:
| Oh, glad to hear that - my nearly-three year old is obsessed
| with the Alpha Blocks right now, and we saw the Alpha Blocks
| meet Number Blocks episode a few days ago.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I spent 2nd and 3rd grade in a grade 1-6 environment (public
| school). Every student got the same series of math tests and
| instruction began at the level they failed a test. Kids could
| retest whenever they wanted. Older kids were assigned younger
| kids to broadly mentor.
|
| This was the early 1970s. It was by every measure a success. I
| haven't seen it's like since.
| darkclouds wrote:
| Keep it fun, broaden their horizons so rather than just teach
| this is how you do x and how you do y, give them some examples of
| where they might expect to find x being used or where you might
| find y being used in real life so they having something relate
| to. Once you get past basic maths, a lot of it isn't instantly
| recognisable in the real world, partly because its behind closed
| office doors, so explain that some maths might be found in
| banking, some in mapping, some in hedge funds, physics, computer
| games, gambling, detective work etc etc.
|
| Dont force anything because no one can predict the future and if
| things dont work out in the future, you dont want them looking
| back at this time as lost opportunities to have done other
| things, even socialising or learning something else, even though
| I doubt the demand for maths skills will ever die out apart from
| maybe WW3 breaking out.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Article wasn't great IMO, but looking forward to the comments.
|
| We found that our kid was excited about math until she started
| doing it in school, where they just assigned busywork (zero times
| tables? Check!) and refused to let her learn with other kids at
| her level. We just kept doing math outside of school, for two
| reasons. In part, it was so she could learn more math, but
| equally important it was so she could see how to handle problems
| where the answer wasn't immediately apparent to her. Otherwise
| she would just skate through elementary school, never being
| forced to persevere or really apply herself.
|
| Our schools like to talk about perseverance/grit/etc. a lot, but
| when it comes down to it they don't care enough to give students
| work that requires it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Our schools like to talk about perseverance/grit/etc. a lot,
| but when it comes down to it they don't care enough to give
| students work that requires it.
|
| Your... elementary schools?
| troupe wrote:
| "No child left behind" is another way of saying, "no child
| pulls ahead." The cost of a set of children not achieving what
| they are scheduled to achieve is infinitely more expensive to
| the school than the value of some kids doing much better than
| what they are expected.
|
| Maybe this isn't bad for a public school system. Maybe the goal
| should just be to try to make sure no one falls below the
| floor. But the schools interests aren't well aligned with the
| needs of any student that is above that line, much less above
| average.
| hinkley wrote:
| I will say it took us a long while to figure out that
| multiplication and addition were commutative, and the times
| tables helped drive that home.
|
| It took me a long time to figure them out, and when it finally
| came to a parent-teacher conference to discuss why I was having
| trouble with math, I count that as the beginning of my
| adventure in self-directed study. I took teachers entirely at
| their word at 8 years old, and it simply did not occur to me
| that they were just another human with ideas that might or
| might not be universal. "This is how you learn this" became an
| opinion, not a fact, and it was off to the races for me. I also
| found myself from time to time playing ersatz tutor because
| some other kids also didn't understand the teacher, and
| occasionally they liked my re-interpretation better.
|
| There is something about realizing you've been sweating bullets
| for something that is actually easy. Few lessons stick around
| like that, but the attendant feelings are complex and often not
| fun or helpful.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > Our schools like to talk about perseverance/grit/etc. a lot,
| but when it comes down to it they don't care enough to give
| students work that requires it.
|
| Well, they care, but just not about the students who are
| already excelling (and already bringing up test score
| averages). I've got a kid in elementary school, and it's pretty
| evident most of the school's resources are spent on the worst-
| performing kids, leaving the smarter ones bored and
| unchallenged. Yea, it was like this too when I was in grade
| school in the '80s, but it seems much worse today.
|
| If your kid is reading or math-ing beyond grade level, they're
| just going to get ignored and handed straight-A's while the
| teachers desperately spend all their time getting Donny Dumbass
| to at least stop screaming all day and eating crayons. There's
| no gifted program or tracking/segregating by ability anymore. I
| guess those are bad for "equity".
| spamizbad wrote:
| > Well, they care, but just not about the students who are
| already excelling (and already bringing up test score
| averages). I've got a kid in elementary school, and it's
| pretty evident most of the school's resources are spent on
| the worst-performing kids, leaving the smarter ones bored and
| unchallenged. Yea, it was like this too when I was in grade
| school in the '80s, but it seems much worse today.
|
| This is basically the education reform movement of the 90s
| and aughts getting their wish via the monkey-paw. Schools and
| teachers are measured and judged on how kids perform on
| standardized tests. Your kid is likely in the 95%+ percentile
| so there's not much room for "growth" as far as the metrics
| are concerned. So their efforts are on pulling up kids from
| the 5th percentile up closer to the median.
|
| Also, it's not uncommon for low performing students parents
| to sometimes freak out at the school if their kid starts
| falling behind, so everyone scrambles to get these kids back
| on track so the parents don't pull their kids from school
| (which will only make things worse for the kids academics)
| twump wrote:
| But won't it make it better for everyone else? Not even
| sure that bottom 5% should be in school. Just train them
| for a role that they can be competent in or decide that
| they will be a future ward of the state.
| turzmo wrote:
| The bottom 5% is hopeless. Yeah it would be better if we
| did that, but people think about education as a means to
| provide the individual the chance for success in life
| rather than thinking about the broader impact of
| individuals on society and the disproportionate effect
| that the top has.
|
| As far as most people are concerned, a kid that is acing
| everything is going to be fine in life and they don't
| worry about anything that could be going wrong there.
| bradley13 wrote:
| You're right: low performing kids get the attention and
| resources. The kids doing well "don't need help."
|
| Which is just wrong. The gifted kids are far more likely to
| contribute significantly to our future. Boring them, stunting
| their potential, ruining their education is the worst thing
| schools can do.
|
| Kids need to be in different tracks. You need at least three
| tracks. Obviously, it should be possible to move between them
| as appropriate.
| lexandstuff wrote:
| "gifted kids are far more likely to contribute
| significantly to our future"
|
| Citation needed.
| throw9away6 wrote:
| We live in a winner takes all society in the USA. So if
| only the cream of the crop is allowed to contribute it's
| where you want to put your resources.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Pretty much it was that way in the late 1960s... until... we
| got a computer programming class, but this is about math: In
| Berkeley, they had a program called 'Seed' that had a great
| idea, give middle school students access to PhD math
| students. It was going fairly well, until Dr Steven Giavant
| stepped into a classroom and wanted to teach the students the
| frontiers and history of math. ( look this guy up! Genius at
| Math, Super genius at education. ) I know that besides me, 6
| other students got degrees in math, and we suspect 2 more.
| Absurd. The norm was 1.2, even for Berkeley. He shared his
| enthusiasm for math, and the children got it. We only found
| out about it by accident, when my Abstract Algebra professor
| said that they were in Berkeley Math at that time. ( 15+
| years later ). And the second influence was Michael Griffin,
| who taught computer programming, when I asked him "How do I
| get to actually learn Calculus?" he basically laid out the
| curriculum that led to my degree. With two more break
| throughs, I now can use this to inspire sucess in math.
| Thanks Steven, and thanks Mike.
| https://www.facebook.com/MillsMCS/posts/1920193231575804
| twump wrote:
| [flagged]
| brailsafe wrote:
| Grade school is less a place for learning as it is a
| socialization experiment. Did you actually advance your level
| in any subject during grade school? Did your kid advance
| above their grade because of the grades that came before it?
| What's the utility in the school servicing your special
| child's aptitude when the school had nothing to do with
| either their current level or the lack of others'? But there
| are advanced level classes in some cases
| twump wrote:
| If grade school is for socialization than it should be
| focused on socialization. Group activities, athletic
| competitions, creative projects, theater performances, etc.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Yes, it should be!
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _There 's no gifted program or tracking/segregating by
| ability anymore. I guess those are bad for "equity"._
|
| The CA Dept of Education used to require GATE programs. In
| 2014, they made them optional, so schools stopped offering
| them. What's shocking to me is that this happened even in
| districts where there are lots of high-performing kids, with
| families that care about advanced learning. When we moved to
| Menlo Park, we were surprised that our highly-rated school
| doesn't have any programs for kids who are advanced in
| learning. They just talk about how all their lessons have a
| "low floor and high ceiling" which sounds nice in theory but
| doesn't work very well in practice (at least when you have a
| mix of kids who range from 1-2 grades below grade level to
| 2-3 grades above grade level).
| sublinear wrote:
| > Otherwise she would just skate through elementary school,
| never being forced to persevere or really apply herself.
|
| This really resonates. I rarely felt challenged until around
| high school when I accidentally tested my way into some
| advanced classes taught by teachers who demanded much more. It
| felt awful and my self esteem was shot, but I was grateful in
| the end. I had the same issues applying myself again in
| college, but for the opposite reason.
|
| Nobody should have to stumble through school like that.
|
| I do think it's important to diversify the experience of
| perseverance though. Math isn't everything.
| loxs wrote:
| [flagged]
| lordnacho wrote:
| At the moment the plan is just AoPS. Looks good to me, I bought
| all the books. Seems to be roughly up to what I learned in high
| school, starting towards the end of primary school.
|
| My kid plays around with math a lot. Asks interesting questions.
| Nothing has taken shape yet, so I just try to answer. But also
| try to get him to work through the AoPS. He likes it actually,
| there's always a question in there that he doesn't get and he
| likes the challenge.
|
| What I don't really hear anything about is how to get the kid to
| self-ignite. He did this with chemistry. He knows the periodic
| table, he knows what the electron shells are, what acids and
| bases are. He asks interesting questions. I even hooked him up
| with my friend who is a PhD so he can ask his weird questions
| about molecules. On the math side, he just needs a little nudge.
| Same with programming. I just get the feeling he's not far from
| simply studying everything himself, I simply don't know what to
| do to spark it.
| fn-mote wrote:
| [dupe]
| MrMan wrote:
| [dead]
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