Ugh! I took DS to Kumon today to find out about it. They gave him a placement test.
Ugh! They focus on "mastery." Mastery means that they get a perfect score on a test. One mistake and they can't move up.
So he missed a couple of signs in mixed addition/subtraction and they said he had to start on 6 + 6 = ?, 15 + 7 = ? and do complete a unit of 300 PAGES of this type of problem (7-9 problems per page) before moving "up" to 103 + 54. They didn't like the way he regrouped in subtraction (?) and said he'd have to learn their way. Getting the right answers didn't count. It has to be their way.
He is currently learning long division w/remainders with me and also fractions and can identify numbers to a billion.
I said that we were looking for new ways to challenge him and that 300 pages of simple addition problems (followed by 300 more pages equally simple problems with slightly bigger numbers) would probably bore him. She shrugged her shoulders and said it was the Kumon way. He gagged when I showed him what he'd have to do. I had high hopes for this place. Oh well. At least it taught him a lesson about checking his work.
This is so frustrating. Why are people so afraid to challenge a kid? It's such a simple concept to just test kids and group them by ability instead of age. Why is this approach so taboo?
Argh! Help!
Frustrated,
Val
