Comparing AIM Academy and WTMA - Econ/Govt Classes

[UmmIbrahim]

I'm deciding between AIM Academy or WTMA for these two classes for my middle son for next year. This kid is extremely STEM oriented, and will be simultaneously taking a fairly heavy DE load (calc 2, calc 3, stats, and higher level CS classes). I'm not expecting him to love government, so I'm more interested in a relatively light exposure to the subject. 

That said, I want a slightly more rigorous economics course. I think he may be more interested in that subject and want to determine whether he might like to subsequently take one or both of the AP Economics classes.

He's already taking two classes at WTMA (Writing and Spanish II), so we've already paid the extra fees there for the year. I don't mind paying another fee to AIM Academy if one or both of these classes seem like they would be a better fit there.

I'm currently leaning towards AIM Academy for government with Gilbert in the fall, and WTMA for econ with Caro in the spring (the WTMA econ text looks better to me on initial inspection). I am getting the impression from the syllabus that the WTMA government course would have a lot of writing output, which would be a big challenge for this particular kid. I am having a harder time getting a read on what the actual output of the AIM government class would be (I'm not seeing a sample syllabus at first glance). It mentions a variety of different weekly assignment types (videos, readings, worksheets, etc.), which sounds more manageable to me on the surface.

Does anyone have reviews/personal experience with either of these classes with either provider? 

[stripe]

I don’t have experience I with any, but I personally wouldn’t do an Econ class that uses Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, as the AIM class does. On that basis alone, I’d go for WTM. However my one and only social studies experience w WTMA was almost jingoistic / providential so I’d be careful there too, BUT it was not with that teacher. 

[UmmIbrahim]

Thanks for the thoughts. I definitely went "ugh" when I saw the AIM text, because I had been thinking of just doing both classes in the year-long option over there. Which led me to the "maybe I can mix and match" idea...

Yikes about your WTMA experience. I want the opposite of that perspective, so ehhh.... I'm probably not going to love whatever we end up with, but maybe it can be good enough if it's not so extremely providential. Supplementing with alternative perspectives is easier than doing it all myself. I really need to outsource these, or they won't get done with the rest of our load. I'll see if anyone else has input. If not, I'll just dive in with one of each and hope for the best.

[SanDiegoMom]

19 hours ago, UmmIbrahim said:

Thanks for the thoughts. I definitely went "ugh" when I saw the AIM text, because I had been thinking of just doing both classes in the year-long option over there. Which led me to the "maybe I can mix and match" idea...

Yikes about your WTMA experience. I want the opposite of that perspective, so ehhh.... I'm probably not going to love whatever we end up with, but maybe it can be good enough if it's not so extremely providential. Supplementing with alternative perspectives is easier than doing it all myself. I really need to outsource these, or they won't get done with the rest of our load. I'll see if anyone else has input. If not, I'll just dive in with one of each and hope for the best.

I have a friend who's daughter took Mr. Caro at WTMA and LOVED him.  Still thinks he is the best teacher she's had.  My friends are liberal and non-religious so I am assuming Mr. Caro teaches secularly.  

[UmmIbrahim]

 

22 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I have a friend who's daughter took Mr. Caro at WTMA and LOVED him.  Still thinks he is the best teacher she's had.  My friends are liberal and non-religious so I am assuming Mr. Caro teaches secularly.  

Thanks for that review! We've really liked our WTMA classes thus far, so now I'm wondering if we just do both government and econ with them (we've already paid the yearly technology fee/etc. anyway). I can try to free up space in the schedule somewhere else to make room for the extra time that will be required for reading/writing for those classes. It's great to know that the teacher was a hit for your friend's daughter 🙂

[Samantheia]

We don't have any experience with the econ class, but my younger son has just finished his second year taking history with Mr. Caro and also really enjoys his class. He does teach secularly. 

[UmmIbrahim]

2 hours ago, JeanMarie said:

We don't have any experience with the econ class, but my younger son has just finished his second year taking history with Mr. Caro and also really enjoys his class. He does teach secularly. 

Thanks for the input. It's sounding like he's a good teacher to go with. I'm still torn about throwing government into our already busy fall semester. Maybe I should just go for econ in the spring and then consider government for next year. 

[Farrar]

Yeah, I've always heard really good things about Gilbert's government classes - they're relaxed and have a nice back and forth with students and a range of different views among the students - at least, so I've heard. It's clear to me that Nathaniel Gilbert himself is on the conservative political end of the spectrum, but I've heard he manages the course pretty neutrally. The fact that he uses Penny Candy in his econ class is not at all neutral though. So, bah. Supposedly the government class is not intensively focused on the AP prep - again, that's what I've heard from others.

Just tossing out another option. We really, really liked the microeconomics class at Online G3, which they'll offer again in the spring. It's really high level materials - college text, lots of interesting videos and podcasts and so forth. But not intensive output. Would definitely give a kid a sense of the subject but not be too much work and would leave plenty of room to take it at a higher level with more output later.

[teachermom2834]

I have said on here many times that Mr Caro is my son’s all time favorite teacher. He had many classes with him, including gov’t/econ. 
 

I say this very hesitantly, because I have been *vigorously disagreed* with in the past- but for what it is worth this was one of the easier classes my ds has taken online. Mr Caro makes it fun and interesting. I don’t remember a lot of the details because it has been awhile. The one thing I do remember is that my ds had a 100 in the class and I remember that because I think it is the one and only class he ever had a 100 in. My ds is an excellent student so his experience in  not finding it to be too much is highly personal but he took classes mainly from WTMA and MPOA and this was definitely not one of the most demanding. 

[UmmIbrahim]

39 minutes ago, Farrar said:

Yeah, I've always heard really good things about Gilbert's government classes - they're relaxed and have a nice back and forth with students and a range of different views among the students - at least, so I've heard. It's clear to me that Nathaniel Gilbert himself is on the conservative political end of the spectrum, but I've heard he manages the course pretty neutrally. The fact that he uses Penny Candy in his econ class is not at all neutral though. So, bah. Supposedly the government class is not intensively focused on the AP prep - again, that's what I've heard from others.

Just tossing out another option. We really, really liked the microeconomics class at Online G3, which they'll offer again in the spring. It's really high level materials - college text, lots of interesting videos and podcasts and so forth. But not intensive output. Would definitely give a kid a sense of the subject but not be too much work and would leave plenty of room to take it at a higher level with more output later.

Thanks for expanding on your thoughts about Gilbert and his classes based on what you've heard. I am definitely not looking for AP prep at all--just initial, gentle exposure. That said, the Penny Candy thing threw me off of my original plan, and I think it's likely that it will not be a good fit, especially for this kid. He got a practical crash course in a lot of politics and government topics over the last few years. All of my boys were obsessively following lots of aspects of government recently, but not really from a healthy place of interest, more from a trauma/anxiety impetus.

It sounds like lots of kids really click with Caro, so I think we are going to jump in with his government for fall. We can always drop if the writing becomes too much to manage, but If he likes it, then we can branch out and take some more of his classes going forward. I've actually got my youngest son signed up for his modern history class for next year, and he is really excited about it because he liked the sample teaching video.

I hadn't looked at Online G3 in quite a few years (my oldest took a physics class at Athena's waaaaay back when... probably when he was in middle school). They have so many cool classes listed for fall. Linguistics, big history... arghhh so many neat things out there but so little time! I didn't see the spring courses listed, so I'm assuming that you have an inside source on that. The way you are describing the microeconomics class sounds absolutely perfect for what I want. Econ that's not skimping on the content (graphs/models/math stuff may be what this kid would like!), but not a class that is going to be a ton of work/output. Do you have any idea when they release their spring schedule? Maybe I'll claim a space in the WTMA econ class for now, and then look into swapping if we want to give it a try later. After the bureaucracy of managing our DE enrollment for the fall (he lost one class that filled because the administrators work through the DE kids slowly, and he got the last space available in two of his classes... it was stressful!), I want to get our registrations nailed down now to make sure we have something for spring.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and remind me about Online G3.

[UmmIbrahim]

1 hour ago, teachermom2834 said:

I have said on here many times that Mr Caro is my son’s all time favorite teacher. He had many classes with him, including gov’t/econ. 
 

I say this very hesitantly, because I have been *vigorously disagreed* with in the past- but for what it is worth this was one of the easier classes my ds has taken online. Mr Caro makes it fun and interesting. I don’t remember a lot of the details because it has been awhile. The one thing I do remember is that my ds had a 100 in the class and I remember that because I think it is the one and only class he ever had a 100 in. My ds is an excellent student so his experience in  not finding it to be too much is highly personal but he took classes mainly from WTMA and MPOA and this was definitely not one of the most demanding. 

Awesome... yeah, it sounds like Caro is a big hit with a lot of kids, so we're going to go for it with government in the fall and econ in the spring. And if your ds found the class to be easier than others, that's a huge plus in my book. I'm not looking for crazy rigor, just some nice exposure to determine if either of these subjects is something my son would want to do another year of at the AP level.

[Farrar]

13 minutes ago, UmmIbrahim said:

Thanks for expanding on your thoughts about Gilbert and his classes based on what you've heard. I am definitely not looking for AP prep at all--just initial, gentle exposure. That said, the Penny Candy thing threw me off of my original plan, and I think it's likely that it will not be a good fit, especially for this kid. He got a practical crash course in a lot of politics and government topics over the last few years. All of my boys were obsessively following lots of aspects of government recently, but not really from a healthy place of interest, more from a trauma/anxiety impetus.

It sounds like lots of kids really click with Caro, so I think we are going to jump in with his government for fall. We can always drop if the writing becomes too much to manage, but If he likes it, then we can branch out and take some more of his classes going forward. I've actually got my youngest son signed up for his modern history class for next year, and he is really excited about it because he liked the sample teaching video.

I hadn't looked at Online G3 in quite a few years (my oldest took a physics class at Athena's waaaaay back when... probably when he was in middle school). They have so many cool classes listed for fall. Linguistics, big history... arghhh so many neat things out there but so little time! I didn't see the spring courses listed, so I'm assuming that you have an inside source on that. The way you are describing the microeconomics class sounds absolutely perfect for what I want. Econ that's not skimping on the content (graphs/models/math stuff may be what this kid would like!), but not a class that is going to be a ton of work/output. Do you have any idea when they release their spring schedule? Maybe I'll claim a space in the WTMA econ class for now, and then look into swapping if we want to give it a try later. After the bureaucracy of managing our DE enrollment for the fall (he lost one class that filled because the administrators work through the DE kids slowly, and he got the last space available in two of his classes... it was stressful!), I want to get our registrations nailed down now to make sure we have something for spring.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and remind me about Online G3.

They typically do registration for spring at the start of November. While their classes do fill, they don't fill the first day or anything and they've been running this class paired with the government class for awhile so I'd be very surprised if they didn't run it. I would assume you can get a spot in it if you just put a reminder on the calendar. 

I'm really curious and waiting to see G3 release how they're doing their ASU partnership come fall. They still haven't said.

[stripe]

For anyone interested in what G3 has said

https://www.onlineg3.com/online-g3-partners-with-arizona-state-university/

[stripe]

I don’t have any experience with this class, but I see that CLRC offers an econ class that uses Adam Smith and Marx and Engels with other materials.

https://www.clrconline.com/introduction-to-economics/

[UmmIbrahim]

22 minutes ago, stripe said:

I don’t have any experience with this class, but I see that CLRC offers an econ class that uses Adam Smith and Marx and Engels with other materials.

https://www.clrconline.com/introduction-to-economics/

Thanks for the additional suggestion. It looks like this is a Christian provider, yes? (I'm seeing lots of mentions of Christian Classical and Hillsdale College). Does anyone have CLRC experience and could speak to how much Christian content might be in their classes?

[stripe]

5 hours ago, UmmIbrahim said:

Thanks for the additional suggestion. It looks like this is a Christian provider, yes? (I'm seeing lots of mentions of Christian Classical and Hillsdale College). Does anyone have CLRC experience and could speak to how much Christian content might be in their classes?

My kids have taken some of their English classes and have observed no particular Christian content in the classes (they do have religion classes so obviously not those), but most of the students are Christian and may bring that to their discussions. I think they have a nice emphasis on reading literature (or relevant books) and more emphasis on deeper reflection than worksheets and so forth, but I don’t know anything about their politics and how that might play out in history classes. I think Great Books classes cover a Christian history, so for someone not interested in that, I would just avoid.

I don’t think CLRC has anything to do with Hillsdale other than that some of their teachers graduated from Hillsdale. CLRC is run by Eastern Orthodox people and has Orthodox classes, and Hillsdale is evangelical. CLRC has some dual enrollment classes with an Orthodox university in CA called University of St. Katherine.  

Edited May 14, 2021 by stripe

[Samantheia]

On 5/14/2021 at 1:34 PM, UmmIbrahim said:

 Does anyone have CLRC experience and could speak to how much Christian content might be in their classes?

My children have taken a language class and a science class with CLRC and there was no religious content in either class.

[fourisenough]

No religious content in the Latin class, but GB students were very religious/politically conservative and vocal about their beliefs in class; the teacher made an effort to teach in a secular manner, but class discussions always veered into Christian content. It didn’t work for our secular family.

[UmmIbrahim]

1 hour ago, fourisenough said:

No religious content in the Latin class, but GB students were very religious/politically conservative and vocal about their beliefs in class; the teacher made an effort to teach in a secular manner, but class discussions always veered into Christian content. It didn’t work for our secular family.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. We have definitely learned that it's not just the teacher or the curriculum but also the general clientele. My kids got enough exposure to conspiracy theory promoting kids this year (a vocal minority) in one or two of their WTMA classes, so I'm really not looking to put them in a situation where the demographics would skew any further right. Maybe it would work for something like math, but anything discussion based would probably be a hard no for us. It can be hard to get this kind of feedback about the student base, so I really appreciate the information.

We are going with Caro at WTMA for both Government and Econ next year (just finalized our registration), so we'll see how it goes. I'll try to remember to post some kind of a review afterwards, since I so enjoy reading of others' past experiences.

[stripe]

I wanted to make one comment about the science classes. The teacher of the CLRC middle school science classes has a personal website linked in his profile that is very… opinionated, and mostly about religion.

I am extremely leery of social science classes because they so often do involve others’ views, not kindly expressed. My daughter has come to expect bigotry from other kids and adults, no matter the setting, so she is even more leery than I am. 😒

I do hope all goes well for the classes you’ve signed up for, and please do come back and tell us how things go.

[UmmIbrahim]

32 minutes ago, stripe said:

I wanted to make one comment about the science classes. The teacher of the CLRC middle school science classes has a personal website linked in his profile that is very… opinionated, and mostly about religion.

I am extremely leery of social science classes because they so often do involve others’ views, not kindly expressed. My daughter has come to expect bigotry from other kids and adults, no matter the setting, so she is even more leery than I am. 😒

I do hope all goes well for the classes you’ve signed up for, and please do come back and tell us how things go.

Thanks again for your help in throwing out some options for consideration. I always love hearing about new (to me) classes/providers. Sometimes, even if something won't be a good fit for my family, I can pass it on to friends who may be looking for something different.

[UmmIbrahim]

Oof... Just visited the website for the middle school science prof. You were not kidding. Yiiiiiikes. Okay then, good to know. I'm not recommending his classes to anyone, lol.

[fourisenough]

20 hours ago, UmmIbrahim said:

Oof... Just visited the website for the middle school science prof. You were not kidding. Yiiiiiikes. Okay then, good to know. I'm not recommending his classes to anyone, lol.

Okay, I’m not in the market for middle school science, but now I must go look...

Edited May 16, 2021 by fourisenough
Yikes, worse than I imagined.