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To: stevio
My homeschooled 13yr is doing Algebra II. He is advanced by 1 yr. in math. I can’t imagine him doing Calculus at this age.

You are slacking; algebra is easy and should be no trouble for a normal 10 year-old: as it is merely the extension of the basics of arithmetic with unknowns. Any marginally thoughtful individual could 'discover' algebra if they were trapped on a desert island and needed to manage supplies.

Calculus is a bit more of a mind-bender and ought to be taught young. Many of its rules are non-intuitive — like why should the area under the curve be related to the slope of the curve at that point? (Granted trig is a bear; but elsewise using calculus [after getting those non-intuitive rules down] is mostly just algebra.)

29 posted on 09/11/2013 4:55:24 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark

“You are slacking; algebra is easy and should be no trouble for a normal 10 year-old: as it is merely the extension of the basics of arithmetic with unknowns.”

I think that overstates it. We homeschool and I have an advanced degree in Complex Systems, which involves more than a bit of linear algebra, calculus, and regular old algebra.

Maybe I’m a bad teacher but algebra has been very challenging for our (now) 13 year old. I’ve been introducing him to simple algebra during the Saxon 6th and 7th grade courses—really, some of the pre-algebra stuff ought to be solved with algebra because its the simplest and most intuitive way to solve the problem.

He’ll get it. But different kids get it at different rates. And the rate of change varies too :) When he hit puberty, the rate of change went negative for about six months.


62 posted on 09/11/2013 6:01:43 PM PDT by ModelBreaker
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