[Speed Gibson,
Tuesday August 10, 2004 at 9:54am]
Pre-Calculus?
When I went to high school, there was no such thing as pre-Calculus. Now, it's everywhere, even in major universities.
I took Geometry, Algebra, and Trigonometry in grades 10, 11, and 12 respectively, which was apparently enough to get me into college as a math major. I had no trouble with the full two years of Calculus required. My high school hadn't skipped over anything. And yet, now we have this seemingly essential high school course called pre-Calculus.
Forty plus minutes of Yahoo and Google could not deliver a working definition of pre-Calculus. I did find some outlines and lesson plans, and guess what? It's all about Geometry, Algebra, and Trigonometry! Usually, there was one more topic or week at the end devoted to a peek at calculus or at least a limit of an infinite series to ponder. I got the same peeks in high school Algebra and Trigonometry, incidentally.
So what's going on? I think it's another fancy title schools use to impress their students' parents, who in turn brag to their friends how their children are taking pre-Calculus! Especially if they're in a program where the kids are bussed to a nearby community college to take this class. If I'm right, soon their will be pre-Algebra, i.e., Arithmetic, and the middle schoolers will travel to the high school to take it.
This is just one more brick in the wall of educational dysfunction. Indeed, my Internet search did find a couple of outspoken educators who disliked the scatter-shot approach that pre-Calculus seems to embrace, as opposed to the traditional focused study of each topic. It's like ecology; where you dabble in a little of everything. You take geology, botany, chemistry, biology, weather, zoology, and so on, but master none of them. You can only claim a general knowledge of how these facets might integrate, whatever that's worth. That can be a big problem with calculus. It is a rigorous discipline, so shortcuts tempt you along the way that work for now that ultimately hinder you later on.
In an educational world awash in grade inflation, politically correct history, normed tests, C honor rolls, multiple Valedictians and Salutarians, GPA's at 4.6 and above, what's one more euphemism?
I took Geometry, Algebra, and Trigonometry in grades 10, 11, and 12 respectively, which was apparently enough to get me into college as a math major. I had no trouble with the full two years of Calculus required. My high school hadn't skipped over anything. And yet, now we have this seemingly essential high school course called pre-Calculus.
Forty plus minutes of Yahoo and Google could not deliver a working definition of pre-Calculus. I did find some outlines and lesson plans, and guess what? It's all about Geometry, Algebra, and Trigonometry! Usually, there was one more topic or week at the end devoted to a peek at calculus or at least a limit of an infinite series to ponder. I got the same peeks in high school Algebra and Trigonometry, incidentally.
So what's going on? I think it's another fancy title schools use to impress their students' parents, who in turn brag to their friends how their children are taking pre-Calculus! Especially if they're in a program where the kids are bussed to a nearby community college to take this class. If I'm right, soon their will be pre-Algebra, i.e., Arithmetic, and the middle schoolers will travel to the high school to take it.
This is just one more brick in the wall of educational dysfunction. Indeed, my Internet search did find a couple of outspoken educators who disliked the scatter-shot approach that pre-Calculus seems to embrace, as opposed to the traditional focused study of each topic. It's like ecology; where you dabble in a little of everything. You take geology, botany, chemistry, biology, weather, zoology, and so on, but master none of them. You can only claim a general knowledge of how these facets might integrate, whatever that's worth. That can be a big problem with calculus. It is a rigorous discipline, so shortcuts tempt you along the way that work for now that ultimately hinder you later on.
In an educational world awash in grade inflation, politically correct history, normed tests, C honor rolls, multiple Valedictians and Salutarians, GPA's at 4.6 and above, what's one more euphemism?