Follow-Up To My Math Post

I received so many great comments on the math post both on the blog and in private email that I thought I would give it another entry just so I could further wrap-up my thoughts. Please note that in our family we are not pursuing college plans that require higher math courses so we have a little more flexibility in our courses. If your child is hoping to gain entry into a college or university that requires such courses, realize that you will need to keep to the particular college's requirements to qualify for admission. Also, in planning to take the SAT, our family has adapted by taking the test at the latest possible date to allow for the longest possible time to study the skills needed.

Here are the thoughts that came up after I posted the last entry on math and math standards.


Silvia brought up the idea that keeping pace wasn't worth what we had to give up in order to keep it up. I agree with that thinking and felt it is worth sharing more about in this post. I think if keeping up with the standards means that we need to pull our kids away from areas of interest and talent, we need to rethink how out of balance we are. The effort we spend pushing our children in higher levels of math could be wasted if their goals do not require those courses.

I know our family has thought and rethought through the issue of what we want to be preparing our children for in their future. I know many children don't have a solid idea of what they want to pursue after high school so it seems some homeschooling parents tend to prepare them for everything or what many call "college prep". I must admit here that we never put "college prep" in front of our children as if it were the ultimate goal. In our circle of friends this idea is socially acceptable but I know that there are other circles of acquaintances that feel like we are short-changing our children because we aren't going the college prep route. In the long run I have seen how giving our two older children the solid foundation not only in math but also good habits has been ticket to propelling them into their own future.


Both Nadene and Heather brought up the topic of practical math application as part of a high school plan. It feels uncomfortable to tell others that your 11th or 12th grader is completing a consumer math sort of program. Immediately the questions cross their face....why is a "smart boy" doing an "easy" math plan? We chose a different sort of math option for our oldest son's 12th grade year because it fit his goals.

My oldest son was totally into starting his own business after graduation and we felt that an accounting course during high school would be to his benefit, more so than more advanced math. I purchased the books and workbooks and we worked through it together. (I was an accountant in another life.) This was a course that benefited him as he started his own online business at the age of eighteen and the experience has continued to be relevant even now as he works for a growing web design company. It takes a certain amount of guts to choose a different course and then stick with it but I would encourage you to truly take an interest in what your children are dreaming of doing and then support it. They can always go back and take math courses at college if needed or better yet, self-educate. This particular son has gone on to take very difficult math courses in college as part of his computer programming degree and has done so successfully. He saw the need and had the maturity it took to buckle down and work at them diligently.


I think it was Heather that also brought up the point that we need to wait until our children are ready and then math becomes a series of light bulb moments when the time is right. I think we tend to rush our children through math courses, not allowing time for things to sink in. I have solved the issue in our family by stretching math courses out over multiple years. My boys do not work on math every day. One son works three days a week and the other works four days. I think this strategy works with the upper level math books and we just split the courses into sections. Last year Mr. B did Algebra 2A and this year he will finish Algebra 2B. I love that my boys don't see anything unusual with doing math this way. Perhaps it is because we have always just worked from where they were and not worried too much about official grade levels. Someone mentioned that they wished that math texts were not labeled with grades and I couldn't agree more.

Note about our younger years: When the boys were younger we did math four days a week and left Fridays for math related games and projects...I think most would call them Living Math activities by today's homeschooling vocabulary.We still could usually finish a text in a year by combining or skipping things as we went along. (There is usually a lot of repetition in a math book or needless reviewing at the beginning which can be compressed or skipped altogether.)

I think that about covers all my afterthoughts and also shares some of the great points left in comments and emails. This is a great topic to talk about and even though I know some disagree with the diversion from the normal math sequence, I wanted to bring the topic up for those families that are having issues with teaching math, math texts, and math standards.


Several have stated that the same issue exists with learning to read but I have not had any personal experience with that part of the equation. All my children learned to read somehow before kindergarten so accelerated reading programs were not an issue in our family but I can see how it would be a problem for other families and the same principles apply. Children will be ready for certain skills and tasks at their own rate and as homeschooling parents we have the unique position to adapt our plans to fit our child's needs individually.

Another long post but hopefully it helps stimulate some thinking in a direction that will help your family.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom