Learn the Goals for a Good High School Math Education

What’s the point?
What is the goal of math in school anyway? Well, the immediate goal is simply to be successful. Your child’s job is to be a student. He or she should be mastering the material and getting good grades. Moreover, as a cumulative subject, he or she needs to be building up the skill base to succeed in subsequent high school math courses.

If he or she is college-bound, the goal should be taking the highest practical courses and achieving the best grades we can in them to look good for college admissions.

Is that all? Well, really the overarching goal is your child’s mental development.

Learning math has a unique role in your child’s mental development, due to its increasingly abstract nature.

It demands systematic and logical thinking. The simple action of learning math is inherently valuable, whether or not your child puts the given skills into practice.

One might compare this too running or almost any other exercise. The action itself is beneficial, even if one runs a loop and ends up in the same place and so the run was not a practical transportation event.

So, we want to do it well!

Goals for college bound students
What else? If there’s any chance of your child pursuing math or math based courses in college (such as science classes, economics, or finance), the main point is not to get up to Calculus or some other specific level, but to know well what has been studied. There can be serious grade and self-confidence consequences for your child if he or she is over-accelerated in high school math.

***A student who has taken two years of high school math courses like Algebra and some trigonometry and really knows it is in a better position to proceed with college level math than one who has “taken” Advanced Placement Calculus, but hasn’t really mastered that course or any other.***

Such a student has no foundation to build on, no basis for going further. (This is one of the problems endemnic to today's American math education.)

This is the kind of high school math student who falls on his face in his first college math class. Which tends to be the last one too!

If you're currently looking into institutions of higher education with your child, you might want to consider University of Phoenix San Diego. There are programs available for both the math oriented, and non-math oriented student.

Goals for the math-oriented student
I would add that another goal for any child of average intelligence or better should be to be sufficiently competent in math to be able to pursue a career involving quantitative and analytical skills such as business or accounting.

For this one would need a confident grasp of the following areas: arithmetic, fractions, Middle School math (decimals, percents, ratio and proportion, measurement), three years of High School math (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II).

You might also want to read about practicing the Pythagorean Theorem with your child to see if they posess the prealgebra, perfect squares and square roots knowledge necessary for completing a high school geometry course.

Homeschoolers can be major math achievers too! Homeschooling families can gain practical tips for preschool through high school children who struggle with learning by visiting www.homeschool-life-situations.com.

Goals of High School math courses for the non-math-oriented student:
Another goal that I think is appropriate, and too often not realized: your child should learn percents sufficiently to handle important life decisions relating to personal finances (e.g. taxes, mortgage, various types of insurance, retirement account), voting (e.g. taxation or budget issues, understand relevant news issues (e.g. social security or health insurance reform issues, etc).

What is needed for this is arithmetic, fractions, Middle School math (decimals, percents, ratio and proportion, measurement), and Algebra I.

Does your child's school need to gain some spirit? Visit www.School Themes.org. This site is loaded with Inspiring School Themes specially created to promote school spirit and unite staff and students in a positive and fun learning environment.

If your child has special education needs, you can find guidance, tips and support by visiting Understanding Special Education.

Back from High School Math Education to Home page

Read about appropriate math course acceleration for gifted math students.

New! Comments