[KC_for_Freedom]

When I taught HS Math (with a degree in Electrical Engineering) the math was no problem. I do believe one must understand a subject to teach it. That said, I want to comment on your other point that learning takes hard work.

My High School was fed from a wealthy neighborhood, a middle class neighborhood, and a poor neighborhood. We instituted a placement test and found that the wealthy kids tested into Geometry, the Middle class into Algebra, and the poor kids tested into basic math.

In looking into this further, I found the wealthy teachers gave about 14 pages of math exercises each night. (They could afford paper and had an aide to run them off). The middle class kids got about 4 pages of exercises and the poor kids got one or none.

Of course there may be other factors, like parents in the home... but the kids did test in relationship to the amount of effort that was required of them. Period. This was 20 years ago, and I suspect the standards have been slipping, but the single most important indicator of success in school is homework level.

[xzins]

My wife is a high school math teacher (geo, trig, pre-cal, cal). Her favorite saying is "math is NOT a spectator sport."

In math, as you know, before you go to step 2, it is necessary to understand step 1. (You can slide around a subjective class ....put Longfellow before Poe, or teach the Civil War before the Roman Empire. It really doesn't matter.)

But she can predict student grades simply on the basis of who does the homework. You gotta keep up.