Hence the typical school's predicament....parents clamoring for more, earlier, faster, and then not wanting the follow through. Perhaps there should be more depth in the earlier years instead? And I am certainly one of those "clamoring", but my current expectation is that DS will just continue indefinitely with whatever math the school can provide. This is in part though why I didn't push for DD12 to have algebra this year, in 7th. With our current offerings...and the fact that she isn't extremely advanced, the normal path to calculus is just fine. Don't get me wrong, she could easily handle algebra this year, and it would have been nice to have it offered, but for her...it would have required "Herculean Efforts" that are really only needed in our case for DS.

I don't know what the answer here is. I suppose it's hard coming into the existing "mess" one way or another, but in this case, I can almost see why our school hesitates to have something more advanced in place, if this is where they land a few years down the road.

Our school does offer two levels of calculus, and the lower level really is more of just an introduction, and should be a fairly easy course for anyone that was able to tackle algebra in 6th or 7th grade.

And why on earth does statistics not count as math?

I don't think that you have to necessarily go the full-time early college entrance route. The child could attend university for specific classes, in this case higher math. Ania's son is doing this (she posted about it on the college subforum). We're looking at our DS auditing university math classes next fall while staying in high school for the rest of his classes. There are ways to keep learning without repeating courses.

I would make the case for a gifted kid to take calculus, even if he/she was destined to be a humanities major or perhaps a science major. I think there is tremendous value in learning to think in the way that calculus teaches - fairly abstractly, with some very practical applications. I went all the way through multivariable calculus, and decided I wasn't as good at math as I'd hoped. I don't use any math in my profession, but I think it was valuable to learn the discipline.

Both of my parents actually took calculus last year at a community college (mind you, they're in their 70's) as a continuing ed adventure. They both thought they should take calculus before they passed from this earth, and neither had taken it in school. I got a great chuckle out of that.

This is my concern as well. What to do with higher classes? My DD9 would be starting prealgebra this year (based on ALEKS). I bought the ND 7th grade textbook which is skipped on the advanced track in our PS in favor of prealgebra. Originally I planned to use it as review, now I am considering letting my DD just do this for the year with her EPGY and then doing prealgebra next year in sixth, even if it is a little easy after this course.

Her interests are all science related and while she will need math I'm unsure at how high a level. She could always take more in depth algebra with something like AoP if she seems to need the challenge, but right now it isn't her interest. I don't think it will harm her to slow her down a little.

I'm not worrying about the HS part yet, but I wish I had better suggestions to offer on greater depth in elementary. I think DS7 wouldn't mind doing addition and subtraction, if the problems were more difficult. He happily does them if there's a bit of a puzzle involved, or just lots of digits.

And I agree that statistics is math. Fortunately, our HS does offer that, as well as AP Calc AB & BC. I think statistics would be a very good course for lots of people to take, early and often.

Hooray for your parents, twomoose. That is wonderful!

This belongs in the Ultimate Brag Thread. Way to go TwoMoose's parents!

My son is currently taking a math logic course through an organization that serves mathematically gifted middle school students. The classes are taught by a teacher during this school year. During the summer, they used online instruction for the logic portion of the curriculum.

This instruction, which is not included in most high school math sequences, could replace grade school acceleration in the case of your child and avoid the issue of going too far too fast.

www.eimacs.com

I should have mentioned that my son who just turned 13 is the oldest by age and grade of the group, as we didn’t learn of this organization until after the testing /selection period last year. For this reason, he only attends the logic part of their instruction each week.

The point is that he could/should have done this (eimacs) three years ago (and some kids are doing it at 10yrs) despite it being aimed towards high school and college kids per the website.

The same organization offers afterschool and weekend classes down to 2nd grade, I think, around here (CT). I considered registering DS7 for one of these this fall, haven't done yet but am still thinking about for later.

Melmichigan,

For graduate work in the sciences, here are the requires from what it was a few years ago when I was looking into several career options:

Social Sciences--usually only statistics, maybe Calc AB at top schools

Physics--usually through multivariable calculus or differential equations, less for geology/meteorology/marine science...

Chemistry--usually through Calc BC

Biology--usually through Calc AB or biological sciences calculus

Engineering--usually through differential equations

Medical School--about half require Calc AB or another math class (counting statistics), top ones (Johns Hopkins, Harvard...) through Calc BC

MD/PhD Programs--usually Calc AB, some through Calc BC (unless the PhD is in epidemiology, math, or engineering, but only a few schools offer that option)

Most careers in the sciences don't require a lot of advanced math unless someone chooses to specialize in data modelling or theoretical science. It can be helpful, though. In my MD/PhD program right now, I'm finding that knowing a lot of advanced math helps in creating new models of biomedical and population-based medicine and in thinking about abstract problems in my field.