Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Advice/support for gifted in math in 9th

I haven't posted in a long while, and my son (age 13) had a pretty smooth road through middle school. He had to work a bit in English in 8th grade on some of the writing assignments and also in Spanish, but math has continued to be a breeze for him. He took Geometry this year and I don't think he missed any points on anything all year (except one forgotten homework). He'll be in Algebra 2 next year in 9th. He scored a 290 something on his spring MAP test. He puzzled his teacher this year (he had her for both 7th&8th) because all her other high achigh achievers had to work harder but also loved math in a way my son doesn't. He just seems to "get/intuit" the math and so finds it boring. He will be doing engineering in the fall, although he's not psyched about it, and is debating to stay in band instead (My preference) but my husband hopes that the engineering course will show him some applications of math and increase his interest. I think his true interest lies in applied statistics for sports or economics. Just looking for anyone who's faced similar issues. I'm not sure if anything needs changing...

Has he always found math just "meh", or is this something that has developed over the years? That is, does he need to rediscover his love for math with some relevant, inspiring, and challenging math activities (not necessarily courses), or is he just someone who happens to be really good at math, but doesn't have any particular fascination with it, now or in the past?

I will say that, as a child, my own interest in math was lowest when I was placed far below my true instructional level. In fact, I thought I was bad at math. It's hard to find an activity enjoyable if there's no engaging puzzle or creative thinking involved. So it may be that he isn't interested in math because he hasn't yet experienced either the joy of creative problem solving or a personally-relevant real-life application.

I assume you're also aware that his spring MAP math score is well above the 99th %ile for 11th grade (which is the highest grade in the test norms), and at or above the 99th %ile for the algebra 2 end-of-course exam, so no one should have been surprised that he was bored in geometry. And may very well be bored in algebra 2, also. You may wish to consider additional acceleration/compacting/extension in math.

Thanks for your reply. He's always been interested in number patterns more so than calculations. When he learned to count (by 2yrs) he quickly started counting by 10s, and then other, less regular intervals. He picked up multiplication easily around 3, but was more interested in squares/ square roots and prime sequences. His interest now seems to be in probability -- he's a fan of Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com and sabermetrics both for sports and politics. We tried to get him to go to a camp last summer on this topic, but he didn't want to do a sleep away camp for that long. He's also a geography whiz and frequently complains about "having to write essays when it could be explained with maps and charts". He is taking AP Human Geography next year as well as sports history, both of which he's excited about.
I don't know whether there's an option to skip Algebra 2 -- I don't remember it enough to know if there are critical topics he needs to do well in trig/precalculus, or if he'd balk at skipping- - although most of his friends were in Algebra 1 this year so he'd not be with his friends anyway for math.

My daughter just finished her freshman year. She had Trig/ calculus A this year but had the same basic math track before as your son. In her case the geometry was easier than the Algebra 2 though she got A's in both. I can't imagine there is an option to skip Algebra 2. At this point just my opinion I would take MAP scores with a grain of salt considering high school is more demanding than grade or middle schools. My daughter did a non credit engineering class last summer ands had no interest in taking it in high school. She took band and to be quite there is no doubt it would easier than engineering espicially since she took AP Human Geography which was the hardest class she took.

It may well be that your child is good at math but not particularly interested, a perfectly valid choice. However, I would never assume someone doesn't like math just because they don't like the tedious, shallow, repetitive calculations that pass for math in most curricula. If you have a chance to expose him to some real math - i.e. taught by mathematicians, because they love it - it would be great for him to have the opportunity to see what math really is, and whether he likes that more. AoPS is a great source (for both courses and personal dabbling, as Portia mentions) but he could also just play with NumberPhile videos, Martin Gardner books, etc to see if he has a taste for it.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I'll look into the AoPS. I personally disliked geometry and trig, and was more interested in (and better at) algebra and calculus, though I maxed out at third semester calc in college and couldn't quite manage sequence and series so I stopped math. Ironically I had to teach myself some linear algebra in order to do some statistics in grad school and wondered why I hadn't encountered those topics sooner. Anyway - i mostly want him to be challenged generally -- even if it's not in math, and my guess is that his humanities courses will provide some challenge simply because they force him to write complete sentences.
What was the challenging aspect of human geography? Content or analysis?

In regards to AP Human Geography my guess was the analysis. Writing which is probably above average is still her biggest weakness

My DS is *extremely* visual spatial, and literally quivers with glee on any kind of math that is very visual and/ or patterned - geometry is his favourite, number theory too. Algebra is more a set of tools he's resigned to learning because it helps him do the fun stuff (unless there's Cartesian planes involved, then all is well in the world again). He really has no interest in anything that involves working with equations - unless he's graphing them, in which case he can spend half a day on Desmos inventing and manipulating equations to see what they do.

All that to say, some people tend to the extremes on whether they prefer the visual geometry-type math vs the more linear algebra kind, so it's great to have exposure to both. DS found AoPS Algebra rather tedious until he saw enough of what comes after to realize that he really wanted to master these tools so that he would be able to do the things that do excite him.

ETA: DS favorite math is actually Math Kangaroo problems - very visual and about thinking sideways, and quite different from the kind of math usually in the curriculum. the samples are fun to play with: https://kangaroo.math.ca/index.php?kn_mod=samples

UPDATE: I thought I'd post an update at the end of 9th grade for my son. Algebra II has also been a breeze for him - still not highly interested in math, but did enjoy using the graphing calculators this year. He'll be doing precalculus+trig next year, Calculus I the following year, and then we'll see about the math choice for senior year.
A few interesting notes: Engineering 1 was the most challenging class for him - he'll be taking Engineering 2 next year, and we'll see if he continues after that (he did not love it). I think the challenges resulted primarily from the format of the course as almost exclusively teach-yourself. He loved AP Human Geography and it was easy for him (the AP test is on Friday, so we'll see how it goes). I'm thankful for a great English teacher who has structured the class to require X amount of reading per week with a high amount of choice on the student's part - alternating "AP list books" (and a choice from that) with students' choice (which includes nonfiction). It's meant he's read some odd choices for books - primarly because he doesn't see the utility in going to the library when we have some of these books at home (in crumbling paperback).
I'm mostly glad that the transition to high school has been so easy and positive, and wanted to share for others who might be struggling with middle school.

Daughter ended up getting 5 on AP HUGE. Took Calc BC and struggled a bit which was unusual for her. Taking Stats Jr year instead of Multivariable. Declared she's done with Calc after taking BC exam yesterday