math/science curricula

[yellowphoton]

There's been several discussions lately concerning high school curricula and what's wrong with current versions (thanks to Caethan for a cool link) and how to fix them. So I've been thinking about this stuff from the perspective of my own schooldays my experiences with tutoring younger kids. Here, in no particular order, are what I consider the

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[tt6681_theresat]

On this note, I remember at some point (2nd grade, maybe?) having a reading program that was very individually paced - there were booklets, with questions at the end I think, and they had color coded levels for different stories to pick, and you'd move from one to the other. It was good because while you got everyone reading, the kids w/ more advanced skills didn't have to be bored with the simple "see dick run" kind of stuff the kids w/ less advanced skills were reading. I think there was a requirement of doing two a week or something so you couldn't just be lazy and not try, but for kids who were motivated you could do more easily, and not be held up by other kids in the class.

A similar thing might be possible in math classes - while most of the class is learning algebra, for instance, the kids who really get it could be given more advanced problems to figure out. If they think they know trig, give then the sailboat problem! Or whatever - but if a few kids know enough to not have to listen to the teacher in class to get the material, I dont' think it's at all unreasonable for them to have more advanced stuff to work on. (Instead of, say, getting yelled at for doing that night's homework in class, because the induction lesson wasn't *that* complicated and it was possible to do both homework and turn around to touch someones hand when you were supposed to. not that this ever happened to me. Oh, or even better - getting yelled at for explaining the previous nights homework to someone else in a way that the teacher wasn't, but that the person actually understood).

Ok again just rambling...

[yellowphoton]

I did have a teacher in 5th grade who let me work out of a higher grade math book. Not that it did me any good since at this point several years worth of mathbooks are exactly like each other. But at least I could go at my own pace and I appreciated that. So yeah, I'm all for letting motivated students study on their own if they can go faster and be more productive than the teacher is going. At some point, though, you start wondering - why come to school at all? If you're going to be learning it all on your own anyway, why should you have to put up with all the waste of time in school on top of that? As US schools currently stand, a lot of the things we learn are picked up in just such a fashion - despite of school not because of it. And, in my view, that's a sign of the system being really broken.