OMG. I'm torn between laughing so hard that I have tears in my eyes and saying 'ow, ow, that must've hurt!'

Since you learned it once and have forgotten, have you considered something like ALEKS, which is designed to find your weak points and give you practice in them? There was a free trial -- you could try it for a month and see how you liked it.

With respect to the multiplication as repeated addition ... There are all kinds of things we teach kids that are true for what we're working with, but not true in general. We teach them that you can't subtract a bigger number from a smaller number (until we get to negative numbers). We teach them that you can't divide a smaller number by a bigger number (until we get to fractions). We teach them that you can't square root a negative number (until they get to imaginary numbers). We teach them that multiplication is commutative (until we get to matrix multiplication and the cross product). There's a limit to how much sophistication you can provide at any given level. On the integers, the result of multiplication agrees precisely with the result of repeated addition. Even when we have a fraction multiplied by an integer, the result of multiplication still agrees precisely. When we start to multiply a fraction by another fraction, this breaks down -- but it breaks down because it simply doesn't make sense to add something up one-half or five-sixteenths times. So we need to generalize the concept of multiplication so that we can multiply more things. But that doesn't mean that repeated addition wasn't a useful model to explain how multiplication works in the beginning.

:iagree: And more specifically, *please* don't let them use = to mean 'and the next step is'. I see issues such as '3x=6=2', when what the student *meant* was '3x=6, so x = 2'. This seems really trivial and nitpicky, but it's rather foundational to the concept of equality -- that whenever two things are on opposite sides of an equals sign, they ARE equal.

Oh yeah, sorry if I gave that impression, I certainly wouldn't buy it for just a few things, just listing their textbook as one that has some chapters on it. I also meant that while accelerating, her scores should *stay* over 90%, and if they start to drop, it would be time to slow back down. Nothing says you have to finish calc 1 in a semester ... if you get even the limit chapters of calc 1 done you're ahead of the game.

It is more important for her to have an extremely solid understanding of algebra and arithmetic, and to a slightly lesser degree geometry and trigonometry, than to hurry towards calculus. However, there's also no real issue with accelerating if her understanding is solid. But if her scores are not at least 90% with a few small errors, I wouldn't do it. Looking at the table of contents for advanced math, I only see two lessons (99 and 104) which deal with series, and none which deal with limits. Rather than attempting to get through all of calc 1 in a semester, I would be more inclined (especially for a prospective math major) to do additional work on limits, sequences, and series, to lay a foundation for both calculus 1 and 2. Chalkdust's precalculus has some chapters on these. These are two topics which are frequently, frequently misunderstood by calculus students. But this is just my personal opinion.

FWIW: I think there's a real difference between a kid who's moving slowly but steadily forward, and a kid who's completely floundering. If the kid's making progress slowly, but putting in appropriate time and effort and understanding what he is learning, I agree with the article. It doesn't need to be a race. If the kid's lost, in tears every day, learns something one day and forgets it the next, it's time to re-evaluate. You don't have to wait until he's 18 and still counting on his fingers.

I would include grading scale especially if you are more stringent than 90-80-70-60.

Since you've already had chemistry, I'd call it advanced chemistry -- it will be a better representation of the fact that it's really a college book.

The idea of having mom wear it herself is cracking me up :D (It might not work for this kid, but I'm almost falling out of my chair here)

I wouldn't call it Algebra 1 unless it were for a struggling 10+ grade student. Perhaps, for the other mother, Key to Algebra was better than Saxon or any other because it worked for her kid and the others didn't.

Not that it really matters, but offence is a correct spelling where British English is used.

When I'm grading, if it's something that could be done in the head (factoring a quadratic), I (personally) don't take points off for no work, but I do give zero partial credit if it's wrong without work shown, whereas correct work with an arithmetic error would garner some partial credit. With sloppiness, if I can't read it, it's defined as wrong. In a one-on-one situation, I'd probably offer the option of rewriting it so that it was legible.

I know it stinks, but I would switch to sandals that strap on, including a heel strap. :( Wearing flipflops hurts my feet and legs too much, but sandals give nearly as much foot exposure and I can walk all day in them. :)

Sorry, I was referring to the OP rather than to your followup, and should have been more clear.

100% this. She probably heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else blablabla.

I'm not too old for bubbles, so I doubt a 6yo is! :D

I'd rather go ahead and start algebra when pre-algebra is mastered, with a plan B in place if it doesn't work. JMO.

Second the advice to do an advanced geometry later, especially for the one who's going to hit it in 6th. There's AOPS's olympiad geometry, there's analytic geometry (often included as part of a calculus class, but an interesting topic in its own right), or simply redoing geometry with something extremely challenging. When the time comes, ask here. :)

The university of California for sure has. Some of the reasons given were: In english, they relied exclusively on the anthology and failed to assign a book to be read in full, which is a requirement for college-prep english classes. Additionally, the text allowed only specific interpretations of the literature readings. In history and government, the experts who reviewed them claimed that they contained "many factual and empirical assertions that are not generally accepted among political scientists [or] historians and that are nevertheless not substantiated within the text by evidence." In biology, they stated that "The texts in question are primarily religious texts; science is secondary. . . . Courses that utilize these texts teach students that their conclusions must conform to the Bible, and that scientific material and methods are secondary. Students who [are] taught to discount the scientific process and the scientific conclusions validated by a wealth of scientific research are not being provided with an understanding of scientific principles expected by the UC faculty." Courses that were based on their chemistry and physics texts were usually approved; it is the biology and earth science with which they had issues. If you really want to use one of the science texts you listed, you could also obtain a secular book cheaply (there are usually some recent ones at Goodwill or somesuch), study from both, and list both as texts.

If you know this guy, or if he comes by frequently, you might want to be careful. He sounds like the kind of moron who might actually DO something like that. He'd be in the wrong, and would be fined, but it would still have happened.

IIRC, aops uses paragraph proofs rather than two-column. I like this as it conforms far better to more advanced proof-based classes.

100 would result in a lot of birth defects, not in the first generation or two but after that, due to inbreeding. After a while, defects would decrease. However, as long as you kept reproducing it should suffice.

Hey, if it came with a cure I'm ON that :D Are you putting a copy of the WTM in your suitcase? :D Spare bras. It'll be a loooong time before we're up to making elastic. Good books on bowmaking, practical medicine, veterinary medicine (I assume it's earthlike enough to have similar animals or to have them imported), housebuilding, blacksmithing, etc. Even if someone has the skill, it's always possible for him/her to fall and die.

If my SO didn't have severe arthritis, we'd both be there in a heartbeat.