My impression of this editorial was similar to Cathy�s crystallized response.
Imagine the �take away� many educators would find and later mention to parents seeking math acceleration for their gifted child. Dr. Ganem should have included the �gifted caveat� as was later added by the author of �The Hurried Child� after his book had been cited as reason to retain countless kids with age peers.
3. Teaching concepts that are developmentally inappropriate. Teaching advanced algebra in middle school pushes concepts on students that are beyond normal development at that age. Walking is not taught to six-month olds and reading is not taught to two-year olds because children are not developmentally ready at those ages for those skills. When it comes to math, all teachers dream of arriving at a crystal clear explanation of a concept that will cause an immediate �aha� moment for the student. But those flashes of insight cannot happen until the student is developmentally ready. Because math involves knowledge and understanding of symbolic representations for abstract concepts it is extremely difficult to short cut development.
I found myself bristled when reading his analogy about developmentally inappropriate skills since each of my kids walked (cruised) at six months and sight-read a fair amount at two years.
