We all know the feeling of being in middle school and being stressed if you’ll get into 7+ Math or just 7 Math. It is a similar feeling to being in high school and not getting recommended for Pre Calculus Honors. The issue isn’t that you didn’t try hard enough or didn’t do well the previous year. The issue is you can never catch up enough to reach the elite maths if you didn’t start out on the right level to begin with.
As you enter sixth grade as a small 10-year-old, you are nervous for your first day, and the least of your worries is what math class you’re in. However, that recommendation tends to follow kids all the way up to college.
If you get recommended for Math 6 you’re told its average. If you get recommended for 6+, you’re told you have the ability to learn at a faster pace. These statements seem quite reasonable, but in reality, you have been placed into a track that is very difficult to break out of..
It seemed no matter how well I did, I would continue to get recommended for the same level of math. Every. Single. Year. I would get good grades, be diligent with my work and even get tutoring after school. Still, I would be met with my exact same “average level.” My confidence slipped knowing that no matter how hard I worked and persevered, it meant nothing to my teachers. The only advice I received for ways to advance in math was to 1) take a multiple week summer program, or 2) double up sophomore year by taking two math courses at once.
These opportunities would never have worked out for me. I was going away during the time of the summer program, and doubling up on two maths was unrealistic for my schedule. I’m sure that many students can relate. Students might have summer jobs, live somewhere else in the summer or have a similar situation to me.
Taking algebra and geometry at the same time can make learning harder and limits a student’s schedule. It leaves little room for electives and graduation requirements. The summer program option isn’t much better, since students have a few weeks to learn an entire year of material. Doubling up during sophomore year also means balancing twice the tests, homework and assignments. This can lead to weaker performance on math portions of the SAT or ACT and potentially affect a student’s chance of getting into certain colleges.
The lack of accessibility and benefits of these solutions makes kids unable to achieve a higher level of math and creates a butterfly effect. If they had done slightly better in fifth grade math, could they be in AP Calculus by now? Or if there was a better way to get into the higher levels, could they have done better on their SAT? Turns out that the small 10-year-old sixth grader should’ve been more nervous about what color math they had in fourth period rather than where they were gonna sit at lunch.
