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Old 04-30-2010, 04:09 PM   #57
JonInMiddleGA
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Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Behind Enemy Lines in Athens, GA
Quote:
Originally Posted by gstelmack View Post
Teach algebra sooner, not tack it on as an extra class hour during the school day.

Takes me back to my point though, there's a difference between presenting it and having students able to learn it.

We've got a shortage of students who know what to do with "c", "a", and "t" in words, wtf makes anyone think they'd know what to do with them as numbers?

As I mentioned (which I hadn't posted before your comment), they already start seeing it in 3rd grade even in the backasswards clusterfuck that are Georgia schools, how much earlier can it really go?

Also as I mentioned, my son's class is roughly 1-2 years ahead of the state norm already. And while I didn't see even basic algebra until the 8th grade (circa 1980) he's seen basic algebra for several years already. But that has come at the expense of things that I had much earlier (such as understanding the relationship between fractions & division; a/b = a divided by b) not coming until the past year or even not fully yet at all.
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