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Post by aln1982 on Jan 9, 2007 15:42:12 GMT -5
Exactly my point, Greer! The muffin baking is what caught my attention too. Maybe a fun activity but how much is it actually going to teach 6th graders? Maybe it would teach elementary age kids how to measure and fractions but just calculate the stuff. You don't actually have to bake it. (Once in a while for fun is okay but not all the time.)
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alula
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Post by alula on Jan 9, 2007 16:13:27 GMT -5
Ah, I knew I was forgetting something! Yeah, the math bit sounded pretty lame. There ARE innovative ways to teach math that don't stop at arithmetic. (I'm still a little bitter about the fact that apparently I was quite good with conceptual math in preschool, when I got to elementary school I was labeled a "writing person" instead of a "math person" (since of course a girl can't be both), largely because I couldn't finish those darn Mad Minute tests--I have a slight hand eye-coordination disorder that made learning to print a b*tch. So basically all my confidence was shaken and I still have it in my head I can't do math).
My cousin went to a Waldorf school for fourth through eighth grade and is in a college prep high school now, and her math and science foundations are definitely not what they should be (although she does write better than some of her classmates from some of the other schools).
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Post by aln1982 on Jan 9, 2007 17:05:58 GMT -5
Ah! I had forgotten the Mad Minute tests. I hated those thigns because I am a naturally slow writer. Would always get so frustrated because I knew the answers but couldn't put them down fast enough. Glad Greer helped me clarify my point - my brain is on overload lately Guess I need to go read a BSC book and relax.
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Post by greer on Jan 9, 2007 17:21:17 GMT -5
I've found that the BSC often does things in school that I find to be below their grade level--like Stacey doing Algebra in eighth grade when she is supposedly a super math genius and many of the books they read in english classes. Although I suppose the logic was that they were writing for a younger audience so they dumb down the academics a bit, it is a teensy bit jarring to me.
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jen
Sitting For The Johanssens
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Post by jen on Jan 9, 2007 18:51:12 GMT -5
What I love is how Stacey the maths genius has to scribble furiously to find out what y is, when the equation is just 3x + 9 = y, where x is 7... Or whatever the numbers were. Scribble furiously? Dude, if you're the best student at maths in the entire state, you should be able to do that in your head.
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digigirl02
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The P is for Princess
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Post by digigirl02 on Jan 9, 2007 19:11:50 GMT -5
While most of the classes sounded pretty good--french, etc.--the riverbend "math" class sounded like BS to me. Baking muffins? Going to a bank? How in the world is that going to lay the foundation for algebra, trigonometry, etc.? It kinda sounds like unschooling to me.
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Post by greer on Jan 9, 2007 19:52:46 GMT -5
What I love is how Stacey the maths genius has to scribble furiously to find out what y is, when the equation is just 3x + 9 = y, where x is 7... Or whatever the numbers were. Scribble furiously? Dude, if you're the best student at maths in the entire state, you should be able to do that in your head. I can do that in my head and I always had to struggle to get a "B" in math.
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digigirl02
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Post by digigirl02 on Jan 9, 2007 20:02:52 GMT -5
Me too, of course I can't do much math higher then pre-Al.
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jen
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Post by jen on Jan 10, 2007 0:35:44 GMT -5
So is that particular equation *actually* hard for eighth grade, and I've just forgotten what maths back then was like? Or was the work in the series dumbed down? I mean, Claudia was learning about fractions in Claudia and the Middle School Mystery... I was learning about that sort of stuff in primary school! Way, way before eighth grade.
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Post by greer on Jan 10, 2007 0:46:05 GMT -5
Dumbed down, totally.
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digigirl02
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Post by digigirl02 on Jan 10, 2007 0:59:03 GMT -5
I was still learning fractions in middle school, but then again, I am slightly MR, and math isn't my best subject. But I think most 8th graders should be able to do pre-Al. (correct me if I am wrong, I haven't been in middle school for about 9 years.)
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alula
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Post by alula on Jan 10, 2007 1:28:39 GMT -5
In most American school systems, I think the standard is supposed to be for kids to begin algebra their freshman year in high school, so eighth graders should at least be doing pre-algebra. And because math is usually considered the easiest class to accelerate (because you can rank kids off a quantitative test, and you don't generally have to worry about "emotional readiness" for the acceleration, as compared to say, a bright eleven-year-old who might have the capacity to read a Bronte novel or something for plot, but probably won't be able to fully appreciate the nuances of the text), it's very, very common, at least in upper-middle class districts like Stoneybrook appears to be, for eighth graders to be doing algebra so that they can begin high school doing geometry. (There were a few people in my middle school who were accelerated through geometry as well, so they took Algebra II/Trig as freshman and finished AP Calculus as juniors, but that was fairly rare and required special arrangements to be made).
Anyway. I don't remember what exactly Claudia was doing with fractions in #40--I know we'd certainly had them before, but I think it was sixth grade that got a lot of emphasis on multiplying and dividing fractions, so I guess it's not completely implausible she could be doing that in her remedial class. But I also remember thinking in Stacey the Math Whiz that a) those problems were not superhard, and I don't think I would have found them so in high school and b) a lot of them seemed to be logic problems anyway, which I don't think is the same thing.
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lilafowler
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Post by lilafowler on Jan 10, 2007 1:45:18 GMT -5
Yeah, Stacey's advanced math class was a joke. But I remember her reading The Canterbury Tales in another book, and my English class in eleventh grade had trouble with it.
We could have just been dumb, though.
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Post by greer on Jan 10, 2007 1:53:03 GMT -5
I guess that the ghostwriters were not math people and couldn't really comprehend anything beyond pre-algebra?
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starrynight
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Post by starrynight on Jan 10, 2007 12:03:04 GMT -5
I was NOT a good math student (I had to struggle just to get a passing grade in regular high school math classes), but even I could do very basic algerbra in 8th grade math. If Stacey was really that good, I would think she'd at least be getting special lessons in something a little more advanced.
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