NEM? Dolciani? What to do with my youngest... (long - sorry)

[HeidiD]

Originally Posted by Lori D.

Can you just "pick and choose" your way through some of these additional texts you were asking about, rather than doing the ENTIRE textbook? That way you can hit the topics you're not getting through NEM, and you don't have to spend an entire year on a textbook when some of it is review. That does require you spending some time going through the text and highlighting what you want to cover and also making sure that you don't also have to do a quick review of something covered in a previous lesson necessary to the lessons you are interested in...

This is also how we've been attacking math for the past few years. One of my kids is interested in a science or engineering career. We've used a combination of Saxon Advanced Math and Blitzer for precalc, then Saxon for physics and calculus. The book we're using for a "spine" is Engineering Mathematics by Stroud.

[Nan in Mass]

How much time did you spend on math each day?

[Nan in Mass]

Well, that is comforting, I guess. You haven't seen his writing, though. And I sure wouldn't want to graduate him with the amount of science he's had so far. It probably isn't any worse than some bad high school, though. You are right. And he's even been through enough literature, albeit in a not very mature way. I guess you are right and he probably is about where a bad student from a bad high school is when he graduates. Considerably ahead in a few areas, even. I never looked at it that way. The only real comparison I have for him is his friends, whose schoolwork I don't see but who discuss things in the car when I drive them places and always worry me. Well, they worry me when they aren't chattering away about how if they had a black death dragon with a penitrating eyeball they could roll a 2d6 and wipe out their friend's hord of slathering creepers. The rest of the time they talk about what a cool play Waiting for Godot is or how cool it was to turn a penny silver or their latest debate.
-nan

[Karin]

Originally Posted by Nan in Mass

. The only real comparison I have for him is his friends, whose schoolwork I don't see but who discuss things in the car when I drive them places and always worry me. Well, they worry me when they aren't chattering away about how if they had a black death dragon with a penitrating eyeball they could roll a 2d6 and wipe out their friend's hord of slathering creepers. The rest of the time they talk about what a cool play Waiting for Godot is or how cool it was to turn a penny silver or their latest debate.
-nan

This evening one of my dd's classmates from gr 1 (she was in ps K-2) was talking about his honours Geometry class. Not only are they doing 2 column proofs, but they have to do written projects. One was on a number of mathematicians (Euclid, et al), and another had to do with triangles. The latter either had to be a 2-3 page written paper, or a poster with a number of specific triangles drawn on it with a one page paper. He also hates paragraph proofs (they're doing both) and I've just decided to switch dd's supplementary Geometry to one with paragraph proofs because they have the logic written in the answer key, and I can follow the logic. I can't grade the 2 column proofs in the old Dressler. Makes you think, doesn't it? I've been following this thread since you posted it and am chiming in on this tangent, but it gave my pause to wonder if my course is honours level or not. I don't plan to call it that, but want it to look like one. Perhaps I'd better pull the history of math book I have out and have her start reading it or something. She does want to pursue sciences/math.

Wai

[Nan in Mass]

Yup. There is no way I can offer an academic education that is even close to the one our public school offers, to say nothing of better. We keep homeschooling because I think at home my children can learn some things the public school can't teach them, non-academic things that might be more valuable than the academic ones; and because we learned the hard way that our particular children don't learn well in school. The reason I keep periodically panicking over this third child is because I think that he actually could learn in school. His friends are definately getting a better academic education, and they are doing all sorts of cool extra things as well. I have done a much, much better job at getting him speaking and understanding a foreign language, although he'd write it better if he'd learned in school. The problem is that he isn't going into French; he's headed for engineering. As a future engineer, it is very nice for him to be able to do history and great books comfortably at home with me in a more engineering-suitable, accessible sort of way, but I feel I would be doing him a disservice as a future engineer if I provide good foreign language, a few interesting non-techinical projects, more suitable literature and history, but inferior math and science. If an interesting college accepts him, then I'm willing to settle for that and a bit of free time, but if they don't, then I am afraid that the advantages I can offer at home, many of which consist of inferior academics, either deliberately so or accidentally, won't balance the disadvantages. We're not even considering sending him to public school, but I am still trying to do the best I can, trying to offer him good non-academic learning outside his future field and non-academic learning inside his future field and good math and science and non-techinical academics since this is his last chance to learn that before focusing on technical subjects in engineering school. It is a lot to balance. So far I am managing to do half of that, the non-technical/math/science half, but I feel like I'm not doing a good job at the technical stuff. My other problem is that we delayed sending him to public kindergarten (the only grade he did in school) because at 5 I was still carrying him around all the time (very little and light, and youngest). So now he is a 15yo 9th grader. So part of what I compare him to his where I was academically at 15: he's ahead in the French, a little in the writing/literature, about equal in the science, and behind in the math.
I don't know. I go round and round. Thank you for posting. Everyone here is always saying how superior their homeschooling is to their local public school. Maybe I wouldn't worry so much if I lived some place else. At least our CC offers good science and math.
-Nan

[stripe]

You've brought up many key questions about education...

Originally Posted by Nan in Mass

At least our CC offers good science and math.

I think, though, that if your son has a very good foundation, it can be built upon, and by calling upon the community colleges, you are setting up a way for this to occur. You also are perceiving your son as a whole person, instead of only evaluating his academic progress/prowess in math, and that is a valuable perspective. There are plenty of lopsidedly educated people in all fields, including in engineering, who lack other skills, such as social, and if your children don't do well at school (academically or otherwise), then it's not much good to compare to what they could have done, because what could have happened might have been negative, after all. You don't want a young Galois on your hands.

I think your interest in involving the community college, and any other outside tutor or supplementary activities, will help fill the gap, but your humbleness is probably helpful in staying realistic and opening yourself up to additional opportunities instead of staying content.

[HeidiD]

Originally Posted by stripe

I think, though, that if your son has a very good foundation, it can be built upon, and by calling upon the community colleges, you are setting up a way for this to occur. You also are perceiving your son as a whole person, instead of only evaluating his academic progress/prowess in math, and that is a valuable perspective. There are plenty of lopsidedly educated people in all fields.

This is so true.

And realistically, there just isn't enough time in the day to do each subject with the same degree of focus, so in most cases, something's got to give.

My eldest is a freshman in college. He was well-prepared in math, but one of the areas we skimped on was literary analysis. (My fault entirely, because I like to read for pleasure, rather than dissect the books.) He's now taking a required freshman course in literary analysis, and he's had to make a huge leap along the learning curve in a short time in that particular subject. So it would have been better had we done more of it, and now I'm making a bit of a course correction in that regard with my younger kids. But the truth is, no one can be a specialist in everything, so all we can do is strive for balance within the big picture (eg. a student whose bent is in liberal arts should take some math, but can get by without calculus, and a kid who wants to be an engineer should have adequate exposure to the liberal arts but is likely better off putting the lion's share of his time into math rather than multiple years of Latin). And as parents, it's not our responsibility to prepare them for every eventuality, but to attempt to imbue them with the skills necessary to pursue their interests, and more importantly, to teach them how to live well-balanced lives.

[stripe]

What I've noticed also about engineering types is a sort of creative approach to problem solving. I don't know what exactly one does to encourage/develop this, but I think jumping around and trying different things, and playing with challenging problems (are these any good? Challenging Problems in Algebra pub by Dover), keeps the brain from sticking too closely to just answering the problems in the book. How much thought is really involved in figuring out that one needs to use the quadratic equation to solve the problems in Chapter 6, Section 2, titled "Solving Equations with the Quadratic Equation" ? Not much.

[Nan in Mass]

LOL - My son is currently struggling through 2.4 Problems Leading to Quadratic Equations. It is taking him forever to set up the problems. The ones at the beginning are easy to set up: A lawn 46 m by 34 m has a path of uniform width around it. If the area of the path is 425 square meters, find its width. Then they get harder and he slows way, way down: A room can be paved with 1210 square tiles. If the side of each tile were to increase by 1 cm, it would only take 1000 tiles to pave the room. Find the dimensions of each tile. I'm not sure why he is so slow.

My husband excels at creative problem solving and it has stood him in good stead in his engineering jobs. I would love to teach it to my son, but I don't know how. My son loves those long involved strategy games involving lots of little models and dice, D+D or Warhammer types. As far as I can see, those involve manipulating complex systems. Perhaps that will help? NEM has a problem solving page after each chapter, but my son can seldom solve the problems. I keep hoping trying and then looking at the answer will help, but it doesn't seem to be.

Good old Dover. I have a Dover book on problem solving. I should look at it again. And I'll look at the look-inside pages of your Dover book and see how it differs from NEM. Gelfand (think I got the name right) Algebra is supposed to have good problems, ones that really require you to think.

More to do GRIN. Working on creative problem solving IS actually something I can do. At any rate, I can do it more easily than trying to find a way for him to learn robotics or something. And it is a sort of math that he won't find boring or tedious and be unhappy about doing. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

Well-balanced lives... I'm aiming for that. And my son is being fairly cooperative (unlike some technical children). It is hard, though, not to worry about college applications, especially having just done them two years in a row with his older brothers. As I said, left to my own devices, I'd concentrate on that balance and the thinngs he's not going to get in college (along with strong math), and let him learn the technical stuff once there, but it is sort of a can't win situation because if we do that, he might not get in. If you were a college, would you pick the student who had done lots of technical things, demonstrating interest and ability, or would you pick the student who just said they wanted to be an engineer, but hadn't actually done much technical stuff or gone all that far in science and math? I'd be inclined to pick the demonstrably technical-minded student.
-Nan