AskDrCallahan Blog

We have had several interactions with customers that have resulted in ongoing concerns about the preparation of homeschoolers as a population for college level math and science. For instance, a recent customer had used another homeschooling product for algebra 2. They then purchased our Algebra 2 with Trig and had plans to review the algebra 2 component then move quickly to trigonometry. However, they found the previous algebra 2 products had NOT prepared them for our algebra 2! We were shocked! We understand that their program may not have been as rigorous as ours, but they clearly had no preparation in previous algebra or geometry either.

 

Other customers have come to us after reviewing homeschooling options and expressed joy over finally finding something of caliber and dismay over what is being taught in the area of math to many of this nation’s homeschooling students. This concern is compounded by similar experiences where students having used other curriculum come to ours and cannot handle the pace. Some of our competitors have expressed similar concerns over the quality of homeschool math programs. Clearly, parents need to go into this decision with prayer. While we do not think math is the most important ingredient in education, we do believe that as homeschoolers we want to provide a higher standard – not a lower one. We do not claim to be the only product on the market that is providing a good math education. We are thrilled that others DO provide good programs also – and those we know, join us in our concerns!

“Why do we have to learn this stuff we never use.” That is the question every student asks about many subjects – but especially math. I know because I asked this question myself. In fact, while teaching university courses with lots of math I still find myself asking this question.Compare this to English – the subject I hope we all see a need for at some level. We all need to be able to read and write just to survive. But do we enjoy the grammar work – diagraming sentences and learning about sentence structure? I did not. But looking back I realize that some of it was needed so that I could communicate with others at some basic level. The point of the grammar was to understand how to read and write correctly – and eventually in school we started doing applications by using the grammar to read and write. The same thing is true of math and science. (I am using the term science globally which includes things like the science of economics etc.) The math courses we take are the grammar and the sciences are the application like reading and writing are to grammar. But, without the math, we can never hope to understand the sciences. Unfortunately, this is often missed in education. The point of math is to apply it – and courses in math should show application as much as possible. This is a great failure most high school geometry courses – which rarely show any application to the real world. So when choosing math textbooks and curriculum, look for applications. Applications not only makes a course more enjoyable, it actually teaches the real reason for math!