Hi Regentrude, Can you clarify this for me? I really am trying to understand the demands of the AoPS curriculum. Our other discussion last week left me thinking you spent under an hour on math in the early years of high school and only increased that as your DD moved into maybe college level math (Calculus?). I'm realizing that was just an impression though; I do not believe that you specifically stated what you did, and I am not trying to put words into your mouth. Are you saying your DD worked for 2-3 hours a day on math for a 12-month stint in order to make it through the AoPS Intro to A text? If not, can you offer me some idea of what she spent on average per week maybe? I really am sincerely asking. I want to understand the demands of the text for students who are prepared for it. Thank you, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

Hi Lindsey, Your plan looks great. I haven't posted on the K-8 board in years, but I saw your heading "Gaps" and decided to pop in. (Mine have all graduated from hsing.) As I said, your plan looks great. I'm sure you have heard this before, but I'll say it again. Reading, writing, and mathematics are the priority. (Spelling and grammar are obviously the important supporting players.) If you get those right, everything else works out wonderfully. History and science offer you something to read, discuss, and write about. You don't cover history or science. (You can't!) You will always have enormous gaps. I've been at this for nearly twenty years. I have accumulated a massive library. I read in so many of the disciplines quite diligently, and the more I read, the more I become aware of my gaps. Education is like that. The more you know, the more you know that you don't know. So if you chase your gaps with an eye toward filling them, you only end up trying to run faster. It's excruciating. Learning to think about this differently can be a wonderful way to cultivate a healthy homeschool. (Not saying this is you. I'm just throwing this out there.) My current reads are linked below. Learning to think about what you have read and responding to it is the college-and-beyond skill you are working toward. (You respond by thinking about what you have read, talking about what you have read, and then writing about what you have read.) Don't stress about covering all four SOTW books with your kids. It's fine if you don't. IMO, the most obvious benefit of working through a chronological history program when your kids are little will be evidenced with you, not them. Most folks don't really feel confident when it comes to teaching high school history and literature. They know they are supposed to have meaningful discussions with their kids but aren't sure how to do it and don't feel they have the knowledge-base either. If you're anything like me, working through the SOTW series will create a nice structure for you - a structure you can continue to build on during those 5-12 years. You may be beyond it; I wasn't. That said, it's fine if you don't get through all of it with your kids. Just try to develop a habit of reading together and then talking about what you have read. Writing about it is wonderful - practice on the level that matches your writing curriculum. And if you can't get through them with your kids, read through them yourself. Same with science. Dabble and enjoy. Use science to practice reading, discussing, and writing together. You are going to be a very busy lady. You have a beautiful family. Focus on the three R's. Get those right and you all will sail right on through. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey P.S. Here is my current reading: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (9781101946329): Peter Frankopan http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1101946326/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687702&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0190218428&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1C56CKE4SPMKJE61FEZQ Mathematics Form and Function (9781461293408): Saunders MacLane http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Form-Function-Saunders-MacLane/dp/1461293405/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457701284&sr=1-2&keywords=maclane+mathematics Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (9780812979480): Jon Meacham http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Power-Jon-Meacham/dp/0812979486/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457701342&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+jefferson The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions: Andrew Hacker: 9781620970683 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620970686?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00

MIT Center for Academic Excellence: Lectures and Recitations - Optimizing Recitations http://web.mit.edu/uaap/learning/lectures/recitations.html I hope it helps. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

... and I kid you NOT - the title was Financial Literacy Talk about feeling like someone is trying to tell you something...

At least you haven't ordered a repeat on DVD. Not that anyone would do that... and still have it sitting on the shelf because you can't return something that you got for free. (Buy 3, get 1 free.) I should just throw it out, but I left it there to remind me that I have a problem...

:iagree: about the salad-bar approach. I own all of the Omni texts and nearly all of the books. Even if I didn't use them as written, the Omni texts informed our homeschool. (Sometimes I hated what they had to say; sometimes I really liked them. Either way, they encouraged exciting discussions. :001_smile: )

Good Morning, Livy would not have been a good fit for my 9th graders. (Disclaimer: all done homeschooling. Kids have all grown up.) They would all have sat dutifully on the coach holding the book for the required amount of time - faking rapt attention when I happened to check up on them. Or they would have wildly complained. It would have depended on my mood, but compliance would not have been an option with Livy. I would sincerely suggest that you read the book. Just take one day's work, and try it yourself. How long did it take? What did you think? Imagine a steady dose of it (180 days x 4 years). Were you enthralled? Asleep? Frustrated? Intrigued? Confused? Enlightened? Imagining high school with the "Great Books" can be different from doing high school with the Great Books. Around here, the imaginings felt so noble while often the reality felt so suffocating. I learned that breathing is better than pretending to breath. Omni I as written would not have been a good fit for us. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

I tried to private message you, but I couldn't. Can we agree that if a child plans to major in a STEM field at a competitive school, it might not be unreasonable to assume that they might need/want to spend more than 50 minutes in math and 50 minutes in science during their 9-12 years? Your daughter did. Do you really think she would have been accepted with the 50 min/50 min scenario in grades 9-12? I have not yet found an AP English or AP history class (or DE class) that claims that the student an be successful by devoting 50 minutes a day to the subject (including class time). Have you? I am not suggesting that STEM students don't need to know how to read and write well. I am suggesting that they should be allowed to rest on their oars as they move into 11th and 12th grades. If a student knows/suspects they want a career in a heavy STEM field, I don't think they should feel compelled to take AP Government, AP European History, AP American History, AP Economics, AP English Lang, AP English Lit, and possibly AP Psychology during their 9-12 years. I believe one course in college-level history, one in college-level literature, and one in college-level writing should be enough. Then they should be released to focus on their passion and demonstrate to colleges that they know what they want and are prepared to pursue it. Nor am I suggesting the student study no other history/lit/philosophy etc during high school. I am suggesting the focus on the AP humanities with homeschoolers is a thing. And this push to pull more and more college-level work in the humanities down into high school is a thing for homeschoolers. It's like a badge of honor. And I'm suggesting that it might be time to rethink it - especially for kids who want to focus on STEM majors in college. I am just proposing that really great things might happen if kids were allowed to spend THAT kind of time working in STEM. Put English into a 50 minute box, and put History into a 50 minute box. Focus on reading and writing skills within those boxes. And I guess we are going to have to disagree about the preparation. I find reading chemistry, physics, and mathematics to be very different from reading literature, history, economics, politics, philosophy, and psychology. I think kids should find out if they enjoy it (and the time commitment) before committing to it. Kids who have never been asked to do more than 30 minutes of math homework a night are going to have a hard time adjusting to a 4 credit calculus class (12 hours/week including class time). In my experience, kids don't go to college knowing how to read math and physics. Am I wrong? Do they read the text before they come to class, respond to your lectures with their questions culled from their reading, and then trample off the the library to begin their problem sets? Because if you ask hard-working seniors in AP English to read The Heart of Darkness before coming to class, most of them will. They will bring their copy marked up. Few of those same students in AP Calculus READ the book before coming to class. No matter HOW MANY TIMES you tell them to do it. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey ETA: I homeschooled my kids BECAUSE I didn't want them to miss out on a strong education in the humanities. I went to Columbia University, and the great books courses were REALLY tough for me. I went to a small high school in the middle of nowhere. We read NONE of the great books. The closest we came was A Tale of Two Cities in high school. That was the only one. I was determined that wouldn't happen with my kids. To this day, my older son's favorite book is Plato's Republic. Our house is STUFFED with Teaching Company courses. My kids' favorite history lecturer was Thomas Noble. They still mention him. I could go on and on. We didn't sacrifice the humanities at all. But we did spend more than 50 minutes a day on math too. No regrets!

Hi Regentrude, I agree. It can be sufficient. It can. My point is that if the child is heading toward STEM (obviously), it might be a good idea to let science or math take the lead. Let it be the big rock. When your daughter was taking her uni science classes, did she spend more than 50 minutes a day on science? And I don't recall the details of your situation, but I suspect you would have objected to a schedule that had her doing two hours a day of AP Lit and two hours a day on AP history and __ and __ and __. IOW, would you have objected to a schedule that made it unlikely or difficult to excel in her science classes? Certainly you wouldn't have crammed science into a 50 minute block in order to accommodate that other stuff. Would you? And if the child is really interested in math, there is much to explore. Much more than should be crammed into 50 minutes in order to make room for a zillion AP humanities courses. If we disagree, then that's fine. I have great respect for you. I just wanted to clarify in case we might actually agree. Peace, Janice P.S. I also wanted to add: While, yes, I would never suggest that a student spend two hours a day doing anything soulless, one of the things I see STEM majors lack is a work ethic. They don't know how to sit quietly in a room and read and do mathematics or physics or programming or ____ (without constantly getting distracted) for extended periods of time. And that's something STEM majors need to know how to do before they hit that Calc, Physics, Chem combo. Hours and hours and hours working in concentrated effort primarily on your own. Collaboration is a part of it, to be sure. But you have to know how to just embrace the work because there is a lot of it. That's a tough thing to learn how to do September of freshman year with all the fun screaming at you from all directions. Practicing how to do it, and knowing that you know what you are embracing when you decide to major in Physics isn't such a bad thing. Silence can be deafening if you aren't used to it. Knowing that you have the temperament for the work goes a long way toward building confidence.

nm :001_smile:

OK. I'm still in. Three lab sciences in one year made no sense. I don't know what school this is, but it sounds like they have tried to reverse engineer the "perfect" education. IOW, if colleges want kids to have plenty of top AP scores, why not just have them start taking AP classes early so they can work to get lots of top AP scores. Makes sense on paper. Doesn't make sense in practice. A good AP class requires maturity on the student's part. Twelve year olds think about life differently than kids who are 18 or adults who are 30, 40 or 50. You can train most 12 year old kids to memorize names and dates; you can also teach them to respond to a DBQ; however, they aren't emotionally ready to deal with the reality of the 30 Years War or war in GENERAL! Sure, you can clean it up so they can study it, but they don't know that you've scrubbed it. (They might be mad when they read a book about some of these events as an adult and find out they don't actually understand anything about world history. Knowledge does not equal understanding.) For example, I've enjoyed John Merriman's lectures from Yale online. I expand when I spend time with him. He mentions things I hadn't thought about. I pause the lecture, trample off to read for a couple of months, and return a bigger person. He just tosses stuff out there and assumes you know what he means. I seldom do. So I explore until I do. At least I understand more. Please recall that I thought I understood a long time ago. Good teachers inspire expansion. But you have to be ready for it. And you have to have something to build on. No one can put it in there. You have to receive it in order to build on it. Look, in my experience some kids stand out in the college admissions process because they stand out. They. Stand. Out. If he/she has a bunch of adults in the background tweaking things to make it look like the kid stands out, there are going to be problems. Unless the adults are planning to go off to uni with the student and then prop him up for the rest of his adult life, things are going to eventually settle where they will. We can't all be better than average drivers, no matter how much our parents want it. Half of us have to be below half. Just like half of us are below the mean height. And half of us live in a house that is priced below the mean. Etc. Etc. Etc. Coming to grips with our role as parents can be tough. Recognizing that in many aspects, each of our children is going to be below average in several attribute categories is part of the process. Learning to see our role in that area can be a lot harder than seeing our role regarding the things the child seems naturally good at. Sometimes it's MORE than ok to just be ok, or less than ok. Sometimes it's absolutely wonderful! Life is full of trade offs and opportunity costs. So is education. Learning to deal with the fact that I'm not that special is a wonderful thing. Learning to see myself as just another face in a sea of no one is quite liberating. It makes it easier to just get back to the business of enjoying the day and trying to do some good. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey P.S. Regarding Greek and Latin - no, they don't come up on message boards that often at the high school level. But they are part of the literature for homeschooling high school. I honestly think they are favored in the hsing literature because there are so many things between phonics and algebra that are "just believe me when I tell you this is true even if it doesn't make sense." Latin grammar is predictable; it makes an immense amount of sense. Very comforting to have something that scaffolds when you are lost in a sea of "Why is phonics spelled that way? What is wrong with an F?" ... and other similarly annoying questions. You can almost see the child's brain shuffling through the logic of the whole thing as they try to translate a sentence into Latin. Very satisfying. Secure. Precept upon precept. But at our house, we lost interest once everyone was ready to start algebra and geometry. Useful and secure and required for college admissions. Viola! Birds and stones and all that! And yes, folks on the boards are great when it comes to sharing their experience about math and science. However many of the major voices in homeschooling claim that 50 minutes a day on math is enough. (The folks who write the books and speak at conventions.) I have asked whether they believe that 50 minutes a day spend on "English" is enough. Crickets! IOW, if the child is going into a STEM field, should he/she be allowed to be average as a reader and writer while he/she excels in math and/or science. Thats when the debate starts about how STEM kids need to know how to read and write well. Sure. They do. But shouldn't the humanities kids have to learn how to do math as well? Look. I'm not saying that you should skip educating your kids in the humanities. I'm not. Because yes, kids in math and science are expected to be good at all of it and GREAT within their area of expertise. But I am saying that you are going to have to row upstream if you are going to homeschool your kid with a focus on math (and science) - but as Regentrude confirmed, "Focus on the math first!" You are going to have to fight to keep the humanities jammed into an appropriately sized box because otherwise it can swell to fill the day. When you read, read the best books. When you discuss them, make it count. And make sure your student writes. Every day if you can. At least once a week if you must. Make sure they know how to research a topic, generate a thesis, and defend it. And then dig into math - spend time on it. Master an area of science. Do experiments from the lab manual. Then generate an additional hypothesis, and test it. Write up a report to explain what happened - learn Excel so you can write good reports. Learn to program a computer - GREAT FUN! Play with robots. Grow things in Petri Dishes. Beg off a copy of Mathematica or Matlab or Sage (free!). Find a book or a website or SOMETHING to help you. Bang around until you can make it work. Then dream up things to explore. And explore them. And then write about those things. Viola! Birds and stones again. I could go on... STEM can be terribly interesting and math is the gateway! May I recommend a book? What is Mathematics by Courant. ISBN-13: 978-0195105193 Would make EXCELLENT READING for an upper level student interested in the subject. Warning: it's not like reading literature. Your math students will discover they don't know how to "read." :001_smile: Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

Wait. Are you saying your 8th grader is taking Precalculus, AP History, AND high school Chemistry, Physics, and Biology all at the same time? What about English? A Foreign Language? I'm stepping out of this conversation. Wow. Please ignore everything I've said. I've never heard of this.

Following up - complete disclosure here. :001_smile: We did not get to enjoy AoPS here. (I own ALL the books. I love them!) I didn't know about the program when my oldest started high school. My daughter would not have appreciated the approach. While my youngest son had the temperament to be a mathematician (He actually toyed with pursuing physics/astronomy; he would have been a marvelous fit.), he did not like the AoPS class when we tried it. We tried it for about 2-3 weeks, and he hated the pace. It was FAST. And this kid is a slow burn. The text just flew by in the chat box; the other kids were used to the format, and they were COOKIN! :001_smile: I should have taken the time to work through the texts with him without the class, but it was already pretty evident that he was moving toward a career in organ performance. And I knew better than to choose an intensive program for math. There just wasn't enough hours in the day. He was practicing the organ for over two hours a day as a freshman, and that didn't include travel time to church (We don't have a pipe organ in the house. giggle.). He was also a competitive piano player - another 2+ hours a day. And he also played the violin - over an hour of practice with youth orchestra on Saturdays. We set AoPS aside. It made me so terribly sad. But hsing is like that. It's tough on the parents. Supporting other people requires a lot of maturity; there's little room for self-gratification. Not for wimps! Anyway - I speak about AoPS because it is a great program for the right student. But plenty of kids do very well without it. Mine did. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

Thinking about this earlier rather than later is a great idea. Sometimes homeschooling can be very humanities intensive in high school. If you look at the advice given to parents considering high school at home, it often starts with history, literature, and writing. There is MUCH to say about these with much to debate surrounding best practice. It takes up a huge amount of the conversation. What to do and how to do it. Foreign languages - especially Latin and Greek - also merit a lot of discussion among classical homeschoolers. Modern foreign languages are encouraged for college acceptance as well. Then sometimes (not always, but sometimes) it almost seems as if math and lab sciences are tacked on in an oh-and-by-the-way fashion. As in, "Don't forget you need to do math and science too. It's going to be hard to do it well, but there it is. Don't forget to do that too." And then the discussion seems to drop off. Yes, there is much debate about which biology program to use. And math produces a lot of hand-wringing about which programs are more rigorous than others which results in hurt feelings if certain programs are labeled less rigorous. But apart from the anxiety, there aren't a lot of deep discussions about mathematics and rigorous science - at least not as deep as the humanities discussions. For example, I have seen detailed, heated debates about which translation of Homer is the "best" while folks (seemingly simultaneously) try to argue that there isn't much difference between MUS, Teaching Textbooks, Chalkdust, and AoPS. Math is math. And To Kill a Mockingbird and A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man are interchangeable. A bildungsroman is a bildungsroman. Oh my. Sigh. (Sorry - sarcasm doesn't work on message boards. See me taking cover...) I believe the reason math doesn't get the objective treatment/discussion it deserves is that most of the leading/published voices in the homeschooling community have degrees in the humanities. That's what they loved. I have found few that even made it to calculus in college. Calculus is actually considered by many to be the FIRST course in real mathematics in the sequence. As in, everything else is a warm up. For a minute, consider what would happen if we spent 12 years making everyone work on their phonics and spelling (K-11). And then we let a few of them read Shakespeare their senior year. No wonder math gets a bad rap. I HATE PHONICS AND SPELLING! What a YAWNER! (OK, OK, a good proof-based curriculum for Alg I, II, Geo, and Pre-Calc, lets kids get a glimpse into what reading Shakespeare might be like.) But then gobs of kids barely manage to get through that "Limit stuff" at the beginning of their Calc I class. They never discover the joy of reading Shakespeare either. So many people think they hate something they have never seen. It's as if you spent your whole life pounding nails into boards for practice, but then you never build anything! They may get a good grade in Calc I, and think they have it! But there is much to be discovered in that whole epsilon-delta business. Beautiful things! Keys to other things. Sigh. My knee-jerk advice? If you really think your child is headed into a STEM field, focus on math. Just put that big rock into the jar first. Plan to build everything else around that rock. Imagine yourself building everything else around that rock. How does that make you feel? Did you like math? How do you feel about teaching it? How do you feel about tutoring it? Can you see yourself successfully navigating this? Please take a look at the samples for AoPS. It's not a step-up from most math programs. It's a leap. It's terrific. But it was written for a unique student. It's not a main-stream program. IMO, it requires that the student have a mentor/teacher who knows what they are doing. If you decide to use it, I would recommend that you enroll your son in one of their summer courses. They are intense. You will discover within a couple of weeks if it's going to be a good fit. If it isn't, you will have time to make alternative plans. The WTM Academy also offers courses using the texts; I would recommend that you administer the placement test and then email the teacher if you still have questions. Math and writing. From what I have seen over the past 15+ years, those are the two stumbling blocks for homeschooling high school. Get those two right, and so many other things settle into place. When you say your local public option is a "pressure cooker", what do you mean? Are you worried that your son is going to get lost in the shuffle and fail to thrive? Is it because he is a gentle soul who probably won't be psyched to compete to be at the tippy top of the system? Plenty of kids hate competitive environments and thrive in collaborative ones. Or are you concerned that your son won't be happy doing immense piles of school work all the time? Plenty of kids think school is hopelessly boring. Getting them to devote 10 hours a day to it is a tug of war that parents tire of trying to win. Or are there other reasons? (You don't need to share them, but I would encourage you to try to examine them - sans emotions - on your own.) As far as college admissions goes, start searching - or better yet, assign the job to your son. Visit the college websites and find out what they require. What does their wish-list look like for applicants? What do their test scores look like for admitted students? You can also just start here: Big Future - College Search - Find colleges and universities by major, location, type, more. https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search?navid=gh-cs I would also recommend that you take a practice SAT test yourself. Really, just do it. (No one needs to know how it went.) New SAT Practice Tests | SAT Suite of Assessments – The College Board https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests One of the things that I wish folks had suggested to me when I started hsing high school was to just go explore the targets up close. Standardized tests are just targets. Stop wondering about it, and just go see what it actually looks like. After you take it, think about how you feel. Are you energized? Are you psyched to explore and learn how to read, write, and do math with your son? If not, how do you feel? Four years is a long time. The days, weeks, and months can get very long. Kids get stuck - even when they are enrolled in online classes - and they often need an adult to come along side and help them get unstuck. We had mixed results with online classes. Some were great. Some weren't. And it wasn't always the teacher's fault. Sometimes it was, but sometimes my kids just tuned out. EASY to do. The teacher can't see what is going on through the screen. Sometimes the whole thing just collapses into watching TV. Very non-educational. Frustrating. But life goes on. And it has here. All is going very well with all three kids. But I would be lying if I said that homeschooling high school was a collection of wonderful days. Over all, it was wonderful. There were plenty - and I mean PLENTY of days - that were SO VERY NOT WONDERFUL! I hope this post wasn't discouraging (It certainly wasn't meant to be.) Just trying to help you think this through with your eyes wide open! I look forward to your thoughts. Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

I would be concerned about leaving too much space between Pre-Calc and Calculus. Before signing up for the Discrete Math class, find out which majors it serves. Is it a requirement for math majors? Is it taken as an elective for engineering or physics students? Or is it a general education requirement for students outside the engineering/physics/math departments? IOW, find out if the class goes deep enough to benefit your daughter. A solid Abstract Algebra class requires proofs and a certain amount of mathematical maturity. Students who pursue careers as actuaries usually graduate college with 1-2 exams under their belt. (The probability exam and the finance exam are common.) Has your daughter explored this site? Be an Actuary http://www.beanactuary.org/ Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

Good Morning, When you say, "STEM", do you have any more info? I realize your son is still young, but are you thinking science, tech, engineering, or math? Has your son taken courses from WTM, PA Hsers, Kolbe or AOPS yet? If so, what made the courses a good fit? What would you have liked to see that didn't happen? IOW, what might have made the courses a better fit? If your son hasn't taken courses through those services, may I ask what you are hoping will happen by outsourcing? How do you feel about DE? Do you have any good options nearby? If you don't homeschool, are you comfortable with the alternatives? Do you think your son would have a good shot at a good or selective school if you don't decide to homeschool high school? When you say "good" college, can you provide name of some schools that you consider good? And the same for "selective"? It's fine if you don't have any specifics in mind. It just makes it easier to offer advice based on where you are in this process. :001_smile: Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

DS's plan: $2535 for the semester. 14 meals/wk with $215 of flex. Janice

Hey Kathy, Depending on where you are with your music theory... I have a COMPLETE set of a college-level Norton music theory course. TE's and all. It's all there. I don't need it and have thought about tossing it, but it seems like such a waste. I would be happy to give it to you. (DS used it for a bit and then headed into another direction for theory) It's a 1st edition set of this one: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=4294990317 I played piano through sophomore year of college before heading in other directions. At the time, I would have died if I couldn't play every day. And then of course, I eventually stopped but didn't die. DS played so we own a beautiful grand piano (still can't believe we squeezed a full-size grand into this dinky house, but we did). It is the nicest instrument I have ever had regular contact with, but all I do is dust it. Sometimes the irony of it is remarkable to me. It is one of the things I SWEAR I am going to get back to. Although I suspect that I will probably obsess over it if I do. So glad you are playing. Sharing your joy! Peace, Janice

Another BIG THUMBS UP for Gilbert Strang's course. Agreeing - fantastic teacher!! Janice

A HUGE "LIKE!" to everything Kathy said. A school like Princeton treats LA and Multi as "companion courses" for math majors. In a perfect world, it would be great if you could take each course with the other as a pre-req. Which you can't. I suspect that's why Kathy understands all of this so well though. :001_smile: They say that as a grad student, you should try to land a Linear Algebra TA position as soon as possible. The course just has that coalescing quality. I've heard that you find yourself making connections left and right. I recall the time on these boards that I complained about Jane Eyre. This was a long time ago. I was reading the book, but I hated it. So I spoke up. A wonderful gal - I'm sorry but I can't remember your name even though the things you said left a huge impact on me that has produced a ripple effect in so many directions; this gal wrote her Master's Thesis on the book. She chimed in, rescued me, and informed my home school, my kids, and my future reads. Big change! When I started, I didn't have enough in me to read Jane. But I just starting reading it anyway. And if I hadn't just started, I would have never have learned what I learned. But of course, what I learned would have made starting the book from the beginning that much better. You can roll the chicken/egg thing around inside of yourself forever and never really know for sure what to do. You just can't read a book for the second time the first time. I honestly think they just push kids through the Calc I, II, Multi sequence before they given them LA because of the college schedule and/or because so many kids will fall away from the math major into other disciplines that don't require LA, so why introduce it too early. However, the subject informs SO much of mathematics. I've heard it said that you can "never have enough LA." And no, an undergrad class is not going to get through the subject. It's a bit like Shakespeare. If you're serious about mathematics, you should get started as soon as you can. It's a fun playground that offers a lot to think about. Have you ever read a Shakespeare play and then seen/heard a reference to the play within the next six months and asked yourself, "How many more references am I completely missing because I haven't read the rest of his plays?" But of course, you can't put your life on hold so you can figure out how to live your life in the most efficient way. In the end, as Kathy said, no one is going to be ruined by going through things the "wrong" way. If the college the student attends puts things in a different order, a student could gain MUCH by pulling Apostol from the library, reading on their own, and approaching their Mult Calc prof during office hours. I suspect they would LOVE to help that kind of student see the connections. Who knows, the student might find a mentor. A lot can happen when things are done well the wrong way too. :001_smile: Obviously Kathy knows WAY more about this than I do. I do not have a Master's Degree in math. I took my 1st LA course a few years ago, but I think it is a very satisfying subject. (My many-moons-ago BS was in electrical engineering; they was no room in the schedule for LA. No one even suggested it. Although I would have LOVED it. Sigh.) I find it so very satisfying. Addicting. Beautiful. Kathy - I have Apostol. Haven't worked through it from cover to cover. But you are the 2nd wise person who has suggested it. I would be foolish to argue. :001_smile: Thank you! Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

I know some of you don't frequent the High School board, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks! Janice

Would anyone like to discuss this book with me? Rather than discuss the content (which I really like), I would like to discuss its placement in the curriculum sequence and the implications. I have seen it listed (along with Apostol and others like it) as Honors Calculus at select schools for strong math students who start college with the BC exam under their belt. Among other things, it really is an intro to analysis text. It's a beautiful warm up to Baby Rudin. What happens to kids who never discover it? Did you? Did you find it and devour it on your own, or were you luck enough to find yourself in a class where it was used? Did you know how lucky you were, or did you assume your situation was "normal." Or maybe you never really liked the book. For me, it was one of those books that left me wondering, "Where has THIS been all my life? Sheesh! If someone had put this in front of me ​before this or before this or this, how might things have been different?" I find the book to be full of immense ideas. Each one seems small at first, but if you let them roll around in you for a while, they swell and grow. It's as if they have a life of their own. I just don't find that with Larson or Stewart or others like it (doorstop texts). I guess I would love to hear about your experiences. At this point, I feel that students who understand and can see the beauty in this text are at a distinct advantage when it comes to upper level math as undergrads and beyond - in terms of content and pedagogue. But I'm not sure I could have read it on my own before I had the other experiences that would have been better if the text had informed them. Which, of course, doesn't make any sense. Discussions about Apostol/Courant/Hardy and others are welcome as well. Baby Rudin? (Another ball of fun, I know!) I haven't mastered the text yet, but I am determined to keep at it. It makes me cry; I actually have cried. I find it so beautiful and so satisfying. Hard going, yes. Such SLOW going. But when an idea really settles in, it produces such strong emotions in me. The ideas are so beautiful; I just end up weeping. Would love to talk more about this. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey

Hi Sue, Thanks so much for the kind, kind words! They mean a lot. I hope you have a pleasant evening, Janice

Good Morning. (Yes, proud mama here; my boy is singing.) St Olaf Choir is finishing up their annual tour, and they are singing in the St O Chapel today if you would like to stream the concert. Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey -------------------------------- Concert today (2/14) at 3:30 PM Central time https://www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/play/?e=1371 A bit about the choir: The St. Olaf Choir, with 75 mixed voices, is the premier a cappella choir in the United States. For over a century, the choir has set a standard of choral excellence and remained at the forefront of choral artistry. Conducted since 1990 by Anton Armstrong, the St. Olaf Choir continues to develop the tradition that originated with its founder, F. Melius Christiansen. Since its founding in 1912, the St. Olaf Choir has set a standard in the choral art, serving as a model for choirs of all levels. The ensemble’s annual tour brings its artistry and message to thousands of people across the nation and around the world. The St. Olaf Choir has taken 14 international tours and performed for capacity audiences in the major concert halls of Norway, France, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, and the Twin Cities. And a bit about this concert: The 20-song concert program is far from feeling like a church service due to Armstrong’s characteristically broad programming that touches on important touchstones for the choir, general choral tradition and church music. “My strategy with the touring choir is to take a smorsgasbord approach,†he said. At a typical tour concert, St. Olaf Choir will find those who love choral music; those who saw the choir on its televised Christmas and Public Broadcasting Service specials; and those from faith-based communities, who “we hope to feed spiritually as well as musically,†the director said. Selections include pieces by great classical choral composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn; tributes to Armstrong’s predecessor, Kenneth Jennings, who died last year, and choir founder F. Melius Christiansen; hymn arrangements and American spirituals; new works, some from African, South American and Asian composers; and, always for Armstrong when there’s an organist on tour, one song for the audience to sing with the choir.

Hi Sebastian, Please focus on your areas of sustained and ongoing involvement! :001_smile: WAY more important than reading the entire report! :) Regarding the caring crisis, I agree with you. It reminds me of something in physics known as the Observer Effect. Observer effect (physics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics) Peace, Janice Enjoy your little people Enjoy your journey