Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is Algebra Necessary?

I'm getting off topic here, however, Evemomma just reminded me of my own convictions of HS students learning life skills math. When my DS was a Jr. (2 years ago) was the last year his HS offered such a course, it's now gone sadly. Teaching kids how money works and how to work with money. I would have loved them to include working with some financial software like Quickbooks too! I think most of us have either experienced or know someone who experienced the large lumps from not understanding how money works. If we're trying to prepare students for life after schooling, I can't think of a more important class.

Yea, work backwards from the life skills to the math...
Basis of not being taken by news statistics
Filling out taxes
Calculating gas mileage
Checkbook/using accounting software
Understanding APR
Using a spreadsheet
Creating a budget
How retirement funds work
Why the house always wins in Vegas
Calculating amount of tile needed to cover kitchen floor
etc.

Since my son has a disability that affects him physically I have made sure that he knows he will need a degree to get a good job. He learned practical math (things I learned in business math years ago) before he learned anything else. This was easy to do since we homeschool and had plenty of time to talk about budgeting and financial planning for the future. I have also made sure that he knows about debt and how it would affect his net worth and his ability to buy the things he wants and needs in the future.

I think maybe I did too good a job of teaching him about the pitfalls of student loan debt. He wonders if he will be able to go to college at all and if he can't he wants to know why he has to do more than the basic algebra that he agrees he needs.

He will not be able to joint the military to pay for college like his dad did. He would have difficulty working full time and going to school part time like I did because he will need to manage the fatigue and endurance issues that come with his disability. I think it might be more difficult for him to get scholarships because he is homeschooled. He knows he will increase his chances of getting a scholarship if he can find a way to take the ACT or SAT and make a good score. This will require a lot of math knowledge. For now all I know to do to motivate him to learn more math that he probably won't use in life is to have him work problems in an SAT prep book and remind him how important getting a good score will be for him and how important it is for him to find a way to work around his dysgraphia to get the answers quickly. We don't have time to worry about how his handwriting looks, as long as it is legible. He works on speed and accuracy while writing down only what is absolutely necessary to get the correct answer so that his hands don't get too tired to continue.

Luckily my son has always liked to take quizzes where he has to be the first to answer questions to make the highest score. He enjoys playing against other people doing online quizzes in anything but math. He says he thinks the reason he wins so often is because he reads and reacts faster than the other people taking the quizzes. I am hoping he will get to a point where he is comfortable doing math quizzes because I think it might be a good way to reinforce mental math skills and build confidence.

And the point that I'm making is that it seems the school is more interested in making the HS student show up for 3 years out of 4 to a math class, rather than prepare them for the real world.

Presumably, these students passed tests certifying they held the required skills many years before, yet there they are again, taking the same thing every year. Are they struggling in this class because they truly need remediation, or are they struggling because they've quit caring?

So sad! We're lucky here in NJ--they've actually added an econ and financial literacy course to the high school graduation requirements.

What we discovered when we went looking is that there is no textbook for a truly high-school-level Consumer Math/Financial Literacy course.

We were looking for a supplementary textbook since my daughter was taking the class at the time.

Her dad and I both regard that (at the time, required) course as possibly the single most valuble experience of our high school curricula.

It seems that there is abundant evidence that this course is needed more now than ever. How shortsighted to eliminate it. I'm appalled that the Core Curriculum (is this "common core?") doesn't see it as important.

Maybe financial literacy courses help students make better decisions, but I don't know of evidence for or against this hypothesis. The research cited at

Are Financial Literacy Programs Effective?
http://studentlendinganalytics.type...ancial-literacy-programs-effective-.html is inconclusive.

I am surprised at how little bright college students (many that I know are pre-meds) know about financial markets. They don't know the difference between a stock and a bond, for example.

When I was in college I read Beth Kobliner's book Get a Financial Life. It was very useful to me in reinforcing things I'd heard a hundred times at home, and making me independent in using those skills.

DeeDee

While efficacy is debatable, ignorance surely isn't a good idea, I think we can all agree.

I also saw that anecdotally with many college students; they really had no idea how loan repayment schedules worked, how a lease worked on an apartment, what a 401K was, or how credit card interest was calculated.

Knowing may not prevent people from making poor decisions, certainly. But not knowing virtually guarantees bad decisions, I think.

Personally, this is kind of a hobbyhorse of mine. I truly believe that kids at the lowest SES need the information the most, because they are least likely to be exposed to the information elsewhere.

Back onto the topic at hand; most of the basics of consumer mathematics and financial literacy require Algebra I skills. The only reason that my daughter's school offers this course is that the state requires three years of high school math, including and beyond Algebra I. Too many of them can't possibly pass Algebra II (which covers the entire textbook, trig subjects included)-- ergo, "Consumer Math."

It's a nice idea, even if the course itself wasn't very good; thus our search for a supporting text. Most of what we found was either a college-level or so basic that my DD could have managed it in 3rd or 4th grade.

We tried:

AGS Consumer Math (about fourth grade level in our opinion, and BADLY dated in places), but it did cover household budgeting and consumer purchasing in ways that the college texts did not.

Garman and Forgue's "Personal Finance" -- this is the lowest-level college text I could find. Bearing in mind that my DD had already taken high school Econ, she found this text to be quite enjoyable. It addressed the kinds of things that I think Bostonian has in mind-- markets, different financial products, etc. It did not address many of the more basic consumer mathematics ideas, however (renting vs. leasing vs. buying, price comparisons, calculating basic interest and compound interest, loan repayments, etc.).


Hopefully that helps someone else. It was quite frustrating to search for a text on this subject. I felt a bit like Goldilocks after a while.

Yes...why it is such a shame there is not more of an interface between algebraic concepts and real-life applications (and geometry/trig for that matter) .

....yet another consideration for homeschool should we get there.