Monday, July 5, 2010

When to Teach... Geomentry?

When to introduce geometry into the classroom? Well, I remember back when I was in Elementary and High school math was the subject that my school seemed to be behind in. I am from a small town up north that maybe didn’t get the best funding or books or supplies for school. So, my math class was always a year or two behind the others. I actually never learn geometry until I was in 10th grade and took geometry. Yes, we were introduced to it a little here and there throughout other years of school but we never really studied geometry until 10th grade. I personally liked that I didn’t learn it until I was older because I feel that I better understood it than maybe others would at a younger age. I always remember talking with my cousins who lived in the cities about the subject we were learning. I remember one cousin of mine was taking geometry in the 8th grade. Wow! Now thinking back over that I would have never understood geometry at that age. So, when to introduce geometry, I say we give them the proper background in geometry throughout elementary but don’t fully teach it until late middle school or early high school level.

2 comments:

Monique Ray said...

I don't think your school was behind for taking math in 10th grade, because that is when I took geometry as well and I grew up in an average sized town in CT, in a really good school district. However, my math was on the basic math schedule or sequence I guess you could say. I took basic math in 7th/8th grade, because I was not good in Math, instead of pre-algebra and algebra, then alg 2 in 9th grade and Trigonmetry in 10th. Instead I took Alg 1 in 9th grade and geometry in 10th grade and alg. 2 in 11th grade. The only thing that I did not like was I was not pushed in my math because my scores were border line in middle school to go into pre-algebra, but I never got to even take that, and then had to take pre-alg and alg a few times to pass in college. I think taking pre-alg in middle school or high school would of helped me alot.

Amy R said...

Katie, I completely agree that we need to set a firm background of the basics of geometry before introducing complicated problem solving techniques of geometry.