Em is going into pre-calc this year which is on the accelerated track. We are a little concerned about it, but it's where her math teacher thinks she should be. She also has AP English, AP Biology, and a college-credit history class. I took that kind of course load in HS too, but I remember it wasn't easy. The other scary thing about it is that it's been a long time since I've done any calc and my wife never took it, so she may be getting beyond our ability to help out.
Khan Academy can be pretty useful.
It's a bunch of online videos, explaining pretty much every high school math concept.
Actually, they've expanded into a whole lot of other subjects and grade levels. But it started out as high school math. The videos, in my opinion, tend to be a bit duller than they need to be, but they explain things pretty well.
Cool. Thanks! I'll let her know about it and maybe I can use it myself if I need to brush up to help her out.
Casper got a lecture on the 1st day of 7th grade math (standard track) that students had a CHOICE to work hard and get on the honors track if they wanted.
She told me this, and then paused for a couple of minutes, and told me her goals was to get to honors math for 8th grade.
This from a girl who thinks she is not good at math! (She's okay. Her main problem is lack of memorization of times tables. She also went to gifted elementary with a few kids who were CRAZY good at math, so her standards for "good at math" may be inflated.)
I still suck at times tables and adding. But luckily ended up passing the accelerated math exam in sixth grade, and got on the extra accelerated track...and took two years of calculus in high school. But still suck at times tables. Can never remember 7 times and 8 times.
It's pitch black and pouring again today. I'm guessing it's 50/50 whether the power goes out at some point.
I will say, in contrast to some experiences (and maybe like meara), I got put into algebra in seventh grade on the basis of some test we took to determine if we were ready for algebra, which I suppose was the accelerated track but no one called it that. This was after a couple of weeks of not doing well in regular seventh grade math mostly because my homework was not tidy looking. It was the absolute best thing for me. If I'd stayed in that first "easier" class I may well have ended up one of those people who dislike math or even think they can't do it.
OTOH, I pretty much slid through Physics in the way Hil describes - I could solve the equations and get the right answers but I really had very little understanding of the underlying principles until maybe ten years ago? And there were some fundamentals of calculus I didn't really get until I took History of Math in college, though those were more in the way of Why It Works rather than How It Works, if that makes sense.
So I have lived both sides of that, really. Finding the right balance where kids are challenged appropriately but not pushed to hard to learn something they aren't ready for, well, I hope the schools know what they are doing when they place them, it's a mystery to me.
Go Casper. Choosing to work hard is awesome, whatever the outcome.
OK, why is it that when I'm trying to picture a length (say, 8.75") just thinking "a little longer than the short side of a piece of paper" is not enough, and even looking at a piece of paper is not enough, I need to spread my fingers along the edge so my thumb and pinky almost span the length before I feel like I know how long that is?
