Peddie School, an independent boarding high school.
I have pretty strong opinions about this topic, heightened right now as I am
in the process of making placement decisions for incoming students. My
opinion is that Geometry in middle school should be reserved for a very
small number of clearly extraordinary students. Some of the schools our new
freshmen come from have started to enroll more than half of their students
in an accelerated track that leads to Geometry in the 8th grade. I think
this is a problem for the following reasons:
1. Geometry, if taught at a rigorous high school level, is one of the more
abstract courses in mathematics. There are many who believe that even
offering it to 10th graders is a developmental mistake, let alone 8th
graders. I have doubts that a Geometry course can be taught properly to
most 8th graders.
2. If a student of average or slightly above ability takes Geometry in 8th
grade, they will reasonably wish to be placed in Algebra II in 9th grade.
(In practice, they often request/demand placement in Algebra II Honors.)
In most schools, including ours, this leads to PreCalculus in the 10th
grade, and then AP Calculus AB (or BC) in the junior year. Again, my
experience has been that only very high ability students benefit from AP
Calculus as juniors, so this placement often means that they simply get
slowed down later, taking PreCalculus over two years, or Calculus over two
years.
3. In a number of cases, students of modest or lesser ability get in these
Geometry-in-8th tracks. We then find ourselves with a weak freshman doing
poorly in Algebra II, and it is difficult to make a good curricular path for
them. We would so much prefer that the student had a good grounding in
Algebra I in 7th and 8th grade, rather than rushing Alg. I in 7th and
Geometry in 8th for an uncertain benefit.
This is not to say that Geometry isn't right for anyone. Often our very
best students came through Geometry in middle school, and end up in our
Multivariable Calculus course as seniors. But these are the 95%ile
SSAT-Quant kids (for want of a better measure).
So, as someone who handles incoming students from middle schools, I would
argue that Geometry in 8th grade should be reserved for the rare hotshot,
and that students who are merely strong get the best possible foundation in
algebra before entering high school. If time permits after the algebra is
developed, I would give them a chance to explore interesting areas in
mathematics that they might not get to see in high school: discrete math,
graph theory, applications of algebra, statistics, etc..
Anyway, that's one observer from the high school level.
--Tim Corica, Peddie School
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Chris Weiss <cweiss@tescharlotte.org> wrote:
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> Many schools seem to be moving geometry out of the MS and into 9th or 10th
> grade. Can you share what your school offers in MS math and how that is
> working for students? I'd also be interested in parent response, too.
> Chris Weiss
> Assistant Academic Dean 09-10
> Trinity Episcopal School
> 750 East 9th St.
> Charlotte, NC 28202
> 704-358-8101
>
>
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