Are you saying that there is a workbook sample somewhere? If there is, can you direct me to it?

You are not wrong. 🙂

"The work." It really all boils down to that. The Mr. D coursework has a LOT of practice problems, and I gather they are repetitious and not very challenging. Farrar you probably remember that based on J's testing, we were advised that programs requiring copious practice problems would not be a good fit for him, but that if he insisted on continuing with Mr. D, he could skip a lot of them. He did, and he does. And I'm honestly just not sure this is a good idea, especially when he has an i-dotting, t-crossing mom like me. I would prefer for him to be in a program that didn't have so much repeti

Well, since you pretty much just described my second son to a T, I don't consider this to have derailed my post at all! 🎯

Thank you. I love this.

I share your suspicion. Which is what attracts me to Derek Owens. Still...in the scenario of trying to get them on board for switching...if their main objection is that they want to keep self-grading, then we could keep that in place temporarily to give them a chance to see if they like DO's teaching style better.

I am guessing that you are right. 😕

Not really. He got all angsty about it after being "behind" for a year (that's a whole 'nuther story) and never "catching up." I actually think that there is a math genius somewhere in there but we haven't found it yet.

But I guess they *could* grade their own work if they wanted to compare apples to apples and make it like Mr. D except with a different person presenting and different problems to do. I could also stealth grade it to see if they were being honest (something I wonder about with Mr. D). I'm inclined to have the older guy finish Mr. D. Algebra 1 by the end of April, then enroll in DO and take a month to "try it on" with a view to whether he would be open to going that route for Geometry next year.

Actually, my oldest son (the one who is supposed to be gifted) has been working on Algebra 1 for a full year now. He started in Feb. 2020 with a Mr. D live class. Hated it and it was moving too fast (it was a compressed, one-semester course) so we switched him to self-paced. He has DRAGGED. IT. OUT. He is 15 years old, gifted, yet taking over a year to get through freaking Algebra 1. I am beyond frustrated.

Ouch! But you are absolutely right. I have a history of chronic waffling. My natural tendency is toward authoritarianism, but some reading I have done has caused me to wander over into an unschooling/TJED mentality with some things. Since I haven't embraced unschooling across the board, though, which I don't think I can ever do, the result is that they don't know what to expect and feel empowered to manipulate me. 😕

Thanks. I'll check into that.

I hear ya. Guess I'm trying to gauge buy-in before deciding. We have many battles and I've lost a lot of ground with them by waffling around on how much choice I let them have in their educational path. It's definitely a problem.

Update: Having to send in their work to be graded by a person seems to be a deal breaker with both of my sons and Derek Owens. Ugggghhhh I am so frustrated.

I have two sons in Mr. D. Algebra and they are both getting burnt out. This is probably the fifth math curriculum they have tried in the past 2-3 years (and I've been here many times trying to troubleshoot math among other things), and the bottom line is that they just don't like to do work. I'm not sure if they will ever find one that they actually like, so it may just be a matter of telling them to suck it up and do the dang work. Which is basically what I've been telling them so far this year. However. Listening to what they're saying, they both seem to express a similar sentiment