Comments on: Singapore Maths http://www.daftmusings.com/2007/10/22/singapore-maths/ by Carolyn Bickford Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:38:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Chris http://www.daftmusings.com/2007/10/22/singapore-maths/#comment-135 Chris Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:40:13 +0000 http://www.daftmusings.com/?p=397#comment-135 I really, really hope you do not try and beat the system and bus Neil to a high school math class. He is such a gentle soul, and the possibility that he would be 'eaten alive' by high school bullies gives me the willies. I know he does karate and could probably defend himself physically, but psychological bullying can be just as bad. I've read both positive and negative reviews of the Singapore Math homeschooling program; I got the impression that it is well suited to kids who don't require manipulatives to understand advanced concepts. There were a lot of complaints about the amount of drill and rote repetition and not enough hands-on examples, but I think that was at the lower grades and I didn't understand why parents wouldn't want their kids to drill basic math facts. Actually I think a lot of complaints were from parents who weren't any good at math themselves, who were looking for a totally self-teaching course where they wouldn't have to try and explain and provide additional examples themselves (ugh) I really, really hope you do not try and beat the system and bus Neil to a high school math class. He is such a gentle soul, and the possibility that he would be ‘eaten alive’ by high school bullies gives me the willies. I know he does karate and could probably defend himself physically, but psychological bullying can be just as bad.

I’ve read both positive and negative reviews of the Singapore Math homeschooling program; I got the impression that it is well suited to kids who don’t require manipulatives to understand advanced concepts. There were a lot of complaints about the amount of drill and rote repetition and not enough hands-on examples, but I think that was at the lower grades and I didn’t understand why parents wouldn’t want their kids to drill basic math facts. Actually I think a lot of complaints were from parents who weren’t any good at math themselves, who were looking for a totally self-teaching course where they wouldn’t have to try and explain and provide additional examples themselves (ugh)

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