Dianne's Suggestion

Students in the US are usually about 14 years old when they start 9th
grade. In some towns that is the first year (freshman) of high school.
In other places that is the last year of middle school.

Jan Lennie wrote:
from a UK point of view, I'm not really sure of your grade system but when I
started in seniors at the age of 11 we started algebra .

--
Brenda
"Sometimes I'd sit and gaze for days through sleepless dreams all alone
and trapped in time." Tommy Shaw

In article , Ericka Kammerer
writes:

We had a kid take an AP Calculus exam
in 6th grade in my kids' school (obviously, quite an
exception, and he had to take his math electives outside
the school ;-)

The year I was champion of my District Math League, I lost the County title to
a 12-year-old sophomore at the Catholic school. Sister Mathematica was
privately tutoring him in advanced calc, because he'd already passed the AP
test. Losing by one lousy point to Junior Einstein didn't hurt, because I'd
beat everyone else by a mile. I actually felt sorry for the poor little geek.
He had a trophy, but no friends.


--
Finished 12/14/03 -- Mermaid (Dimensions)
WIP: Fireman's Prayer, Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday
Snowglobe

Paralegal - Writer - Editor - Researcher
http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

In article , Susan Hartman/Dirty Linen
writes:

So, is it the times, or the size of the school, or the expectations of
the community served? (or all three?) What's your experience?

Our school offered algebra in 8th grade to those students sufficiently advanced
that they would have been bored in regular 8th grade math.

NY State required that you pass one year of high school math in order to
graduate. Preferably, that would have been Algebra, but if you'd tried twice
and failed twice, you took a one-year class (Algebra A) covering only the first
half the material, and if you failed that, you took what the teachers called
Dummy Math, where, essentially, you were taught to recognize the On switch and
the + sign on your calculator.

Math League assumed that 9th graders would be taking Algebra, 10th graders
Geometry, 11th graders Trig, and questions were distributed accordingly. We
always knew that Question 2 and Question 5 would be Geometry, so we could
rotate our 9th graders out and have only competitors who knew something about
Geometry. I assume that this progression was a statewide standard. I know it
was the standard for every school in our Math League District.


--
Finished 12/14/03 -- Mermaid (Dimensions)
WIP: Fireman's Prayer, Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday
Snowglobe

Paralegal - Writer - Editor - Researcher
http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html

On 3/15/04 1:50 PM, in article ,
"Karen C - California" wrote:

In article , Ericka Kammerer
writes:

We had a kid take an AP Calculus exam
in 6th grade in my kids' school (obviously, quite an
exception, and he had to take his math electives outside
the school ;-)

The year I was champion of my District Math League, I lost the County title to
a 12-year-old sophomore at the Catholic school. Sister Mathematica was
privately tutoring him in advanced calc, because he'd already passed the AP
test. Losing by one lousy point to Junior Einstein didn't hurt, because I'd
beat everyone else by a mile. I actually felt sorry for the poor little geek.
He had a trophy, but no friends.


Way back when, I was bored silly in 7 and 8th grade math, with an A+.
Teacher fixed me; made me tutor several other students to keep the A+. 9th I
took Algebra, 10th, Algebra II and Geometry, 11th was trig, Linear Algebra
and Calculus. Tutored every single one of them too.

I loved math so, but have this huge (I'll assume mental block) once you get
to multi-dimensional calculus and polynomial calculus. Killed the math
career and the physics career too. Just can not wrap my brain around it once
you get to 5 or more dimensions.

Cheryl

I'm 25 and majored in physics in college. Most of my friends from the
US did a standard course of Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II,
Trigonometry & Precalculus, and Calculus from 8th through 12th grade.
Some people took AP Calculus classes, some people took IB classes
(International Baccalaureate, which placed them another semester ahead,
straight into multivariable calculus).

I currently tutor high school students for SAT prep in the Boston area,
and the course load is much the same, although the tracking is set back
a year for the lower level classes.

Meredith

Karen C - California wrote:
In article , Susan Hartman/Dirty Linen
writes:


So, is it the times, or the size of the school, or the expectations of
the community served? (or all three?) What's your experience?


Our school offered algebra in 8th grade to those students sufficiently advanced
that they would have been bored in regular 8th grade math.

NY State required that you pass one year of high school math in order to
graduate. Preferably, that would have been Algebra, but if you'd tried twice
and failed twice, you took a one-year class (Algebra A) covering only the first
half the material, and if you failed that, you took what the teachers called
Dummy Math, where, essentially, you were taught to recognize the On switch and
the + sign on your calculator.

Math League assumed that 9th graders would be taking Algebra, 10th graders
Geometry, 11th graders Trig, and questions were distributed accordingly. We
always knew that Question 2 and Question 5 would be Geometry, so we could
rotate our 9th graders out and have only competitors who knew something about
Geometry. I assume that this progression was a statewide standard. I know it
was the standard for every school in our Math League District.

I have snipped a bit from my daughter's email. She is 41, and her son starts
HS this fall (her BS was in Math and MS in Computer Science, for
background). I thought it might be of interest since that is the cyrrent
topic here. The school is in maryland.


Did I mention Mike is all signed up for High School? It really hit me hard
when I think of him going to High School - I don't know where the time has
gone... here he is signing up for algebra, wanting to get thru Calculus (and
preferably college credit) by College age, wanting to take Latin, but not
having enough schedule time. They get into all sorts of things like Computer
programming, Economics, Accounting, Drafting, etc. The list is huge! It
seems more like college than HS to me.


Gillian
Florida

"JoyceG in WA" wrote in message
...
In this area (Puget Sound, Washington State) the math curriculum varies
from
district to district. My three children are in elementary, middle and
high
school. An "integrated" math program starts in middle school, and if you
do
well in math you can actually complete high school math credits in eigth
grade
by taking "Integrated I" math. My daughter is in 10th grade taking
"Integrated
III" which actually has a lot of trig and calculus components. It is
totally
different from the way I studied math in MA in the 70's. The "Integrated"
program seems to skip around a lot, IMO, but does include algebra,
geometry,
calculus and trig components as you move through the program. As with any
math
program, however, the big difference in my children has been the *teacher*
versus the math program itself. A good math teacher is a treasure, and I
find
there aren't as many of them around as there should be!

-JoyceG in WA

Sue asked:

That's how it was in my school, too. What I'm wondering is, what that
because I went to a small public school system that was not entirely
college-oriented, or because of the times? (late 60s- early 70s).
However, when I started at university, I realized that a lot of other
people had had a lot more high-level courses than were offered in my
high school.

Our math track was: Algebra I (grade 9)/ Geometry (grade 10)/ Algebra II
(grade 11)/ trig/pre-calc (grade 12; 1/2 year each, one small class of
the most academically "select" kids, mostly male).

I'm curious, because DS was in GT math starting in middle school and was
in calc III by the time he was a HS senior. DD's math track is similar
to what mine used to be, but she's at a different school - an arts
magnet, unlike the academic pressure-cooker that is the local public
high school that DS went to.

So, is it the times, or the size of the school, or the expectations of
the community served? (or all three?) What's your experience?

Sue (who always *loved* algebra)