Professor Posamentier, the dean of education at City College recently wrote an article in Newsday saying that AP calculus should not be taught in high school, that school's should emphasize algebra skills instead. He said kids are coming into the colleges with AP credit, yet their skills are severely lacking.
I know Professor Posamentier quite well. He was my main math education teacher as an under graduate, graduate and! post graduate student. He is a brilliant teacher and I credit him with my skills as a teacher. I completely and whole-heartedly disagree with the premise of this article. Kids might come into college ill prepared but, it is not the fault of AP calculus. Instead I would blame the poor curriculum of Math A and Math B. I would blame the early emphasis of calculator use. I would blame the use of manipulatives, instead of memorization (multiplication tables) in elementary school.
I have been teaching AP calculus for over ten years. The students I have must qualify for the class by taking pre-calculus and doing well in that class. By ta! king away AP calculus from these kids we are dummying down the curriculum and once again teaching to the lowest level possible. We should not assume that all kids are not capable. The kids in my school are. Sometimes I do end up with students who "sneak in." They don't have the prerequisites. When I find out, I try to "hide" them in the class. The five on the AP exam is not that important. The skills they learn in my class are. AP calculus is a class that teaches kids how to think, how to apply their knowledge to problem solving. They are able to solve problems numerically, analytically, algebraically, and graphically. They must be able to support or confirm answers through written exercises. They must understand that technology is used to support results. Studen! ts are taught that mathematics provides the foundation that allows technology to solve problems. No other math class does this.
Calculus taught on the college level does not delve as deeply into the subject as it is on the high school level. There simply is not enough time. Rather than remove AP calculus from the high school curriculum, we should be doing more to insure more students get to take it.
I know Professor Posamentier quite well. He was my main math education teacher as an under graduate, graduate and! post graduate student. He is a brilliant teacher and I credit him with my skills as a teacher. I completely and whole-heartedly disagree with the premise of this article. Kids might come into college ill prepared but, it is not the fault of AP calculus. Instead I would blame the poor curriculum of Math A and Math B. I would blame the early emphasis of calculator use. I would blame the use of manipulatives, instead of memorization (multiplication tables) in elementary school.
I have been teaching AP calculus for over ten years. The students I have must qualify for the class by taking pre-calculus and doing well in that class. By ta! king away AP calculus from these kids we are dummying down the curriculum and once again teaching to the lowest level possible. We should not assume that all kids are not capable. The kids in my school are. Sometimes I do end up with students who "sneak in." They don't have the prerequisites. When I find out, I try to "hide" them in the class. The five on the AP exam is not that important. The skills they learn in my class are. AP calculus is a class that teaches kids how to think, how to apply their knowledge to problem solving. They are able to solve problems numerically, analytically, algebraically, and graphically. They must be able to support or confirm answers through written exercises. They must understand that technology is used to support results. Studen! ts are taught that mathematics provides the foundation that allows technology to solve problems. No other math class does this.
Calculus taught on the college level does not delve as deeply into the subject as it is on the high school level. There simply is not enough time. Rather than remove AP calculus from the high school curriculum, we should be doing more to insure more students get to take it.
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