<p>My son was finally happy when he discovered The Berkeley Math Circle. All through elementary school and middle school we had no luck finding teachers/schools who would teach any thing other than the standard curriculum. High School was somewhat better as he was lucky enough to go to a high school across the street from UCB so he took advanced classes at UCB. But it was the Math Circle that provided the most interesting mathematics for him to explore. It also helped him connect to other students (middle through high school) who were interested in higher level mathematics. That group formed a math team and competed in math competitions. His high school did not have enough interest to form their own math team. He also really enjoyed the summers he went to math summer programs: PROMYS & HCISSiM. He also loves Origami - one of the classes at HCISSiM was the Mathematics of Origami. But during the school year it was the Math Circle that provided him with the challenges in mathematics that he thrived on. I know there a few other math circles in California and would imagine they exist in other states as well.</p>
<p>It really depends how much of a gap there is between what your child has already covered and what the curriculum is for his grade level. Would it be okay to expect a high school senior to do 7th grade math? That was the question we were faced with. In math, S was functionnally like a 12th grader.</p>
<p>Oaklandmom:</p>
<p>Ours attended the Boston-area Math Circle whose philosophy is rather different from the Berkeley Math Circle; there, too, S learned most of his math. But the more he learned, the wider the gap between what he knew and what his classmates were learning.<br>
The founders of the Boston-area Math Circle have just published a book: Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free. It’s great reading.</p>
<p>Skiers -mom, congrats on D.
I do agree with you, especially when it comes to taking classes at CC.
But one of the aspects of DS abilitis was for him not to get bored and not to loose interest, as is the case with so many able/gifted. I am sure DS will be looking forward to coaching othert students is math, he needs to go through Calc first though 
My big issue is the time wasted while at school. He does not waist it all, but for sure 50% . Even if he “needs” to waste 25% to catchup on his friends and other staff that goes at school, I am sure he wastes the remaining 25% by just looking at the clock. We are talking almost 2 hours a day here!
Marite, when son was specifically tested in math in the spring of 4th grade, he tested out of high school. LOL, he could not divide fractions at that time, but his ability to comprehend math and his math intuition put him above graduating seniors. To me it just meant how our college bound seniors underperform in math, and I see that daily for a living :-).
Since then he has written SAT for a talent search and his scores did qualify him for the SET - but doubt it wil have any significance.</p>
<p>oh, and thanks for all the book recommendations - already started checking them out. DS was acepted into math circle last year - we had to commute for one hour each wa, but he enjoyed it, althought most problems had him in a loop ;-)</p>
<p>Kelowna:</p>
<p>He does need to master the basics. He can do so probably much faster, with less repetition, than most students, but he still needs to be able to do the basics. What it looks like is for him to have a compacted curriculum. S covered precalc in one semester because his dad assigned just the right number of exercises–which turned out to be about 1/3 of what students normally would do. But that was enough.</p>
<p>In addition to all the fine suggestions already posted, something we did for several middle school summers was to get together with another family who had a mathkid and hire someone to come once a week and do math with the boys that had no particular relationship to a curriculum. We made sure they were cool young guys, and they showed the boys cool stuff. I remember something called the Pigeonhole Principle (don’t ask me!) being tossed around summer afternoons at our dining room table, and that one of these teachers showed the boys around 7th grade or so that they already knew enough math to understand one aspect of Einstein’s theory of relativity. When my kid took number theory in college, he suddenly realized the course used the same book he’d been given as a gift in seventh grade by one of these teachers.</p>
<p>The purpose was not just to learn and enjoy math, but to get them through the period when they thought enjoying math was only for “geeks”. They had a good time with these guys, especially one recent math PhD who also raced bikes, played guitar, had a girlfriend — you get the idea.</p>
<p>After competing in chess for a few years, my S never wanted to do math competitions, didn’t want to spend his summer at math camps, or give up his Sundays for math circle. He was heavily involved in music and sports. So his was an in-between path compared to some others discussed here. We found a high school that was willing to put a few advanced kids together and teach them mutivariable (they mostly taught themselves) and he took linear algebra in the evenings at community college (served its purpose, but not a challenge;the teacher let him skip the final.) He tutored. He had enough to enter college on an honors math track. Interestingly, he decided his first year at college he was not a mathkid at the college level. But senior year, he’s signed up for nothing but math, mathematical physics, and computer science. His head start in math served him well and allowed him to have a little more room to explore.</p>
<p>Mentoring.
SAC, how were you finding them?</p>
<p>SAC - you touched on a good point, other like-functioning kids. One great gift my S found in 1st grade was a pod of 3 other geeky boys. Gang of Four they were know as. Car pools were a scream - molucular structure of heavy water and other light topics. By high school they had all gone different ways, but at a very important time they had a peer group where is was OK to be smart (scary smart). It gave them incredible intellectual confidence.</p>
<p>Kelowna – It’s probably easier where we live than elsewhere, but we found them through the schools. The first was a math consultant who’d been hired to do some math enrichment in the elementary school. He was a PhD in applied math from MIT who enjoyed being his own boss. The second was the fiance of my S’s middle school English teacher. He was just finishing up his PhD and really enjoyed teaching a couple of boys the stuff he wished he’d learned much earlier than college. So we were lucky.</p>
<p>skiers-mom – I was just thinking how fortunate and fated it was that there were two boys the same age on our very short street who both had math genes. They had very little else in common, and my S had a whole circle of friends from his other activities who just weren’t in the same place mathematically. But these two boys, with the occasional addition of one or two along the way, went through middle school and high school together. They had complementary talents, too. The friend has a great intuition for how to attack a problem, while my S had the drive to think it through and solve it. The friend is much more visual, while my S is more number driven. Interesting and very lucky.</p>
<p>DS has a friend who lives around the corner for whom bio/chem is to him as math/cs is to DS. They didn’t have to share math genes to be best friends. Scifi, physics, geek rock, books, philosophy, computer games – you name it. The car pool discussions were a riot, and worth getting up at 5:45am to drive! Every time either one has won an award or honor over the years, we’ve all said “Chalk up one for the car pool.” </p>
<p>They have been going to the same programs for the past six years. Sometimes we drive, most of the time, they take the bus – which is filled with similarly-minded kids all going to the same programs. Heaven help the bus driver! When people ask about the long bus ride, I tell them DS says it’s the best part of his day!</p>
<p>Kelowna, is there a college near you? They might have students or profs who are willing to take on talented young ones (or would be willing to tutor for extra cash).</p>
<p>There is a college 5 min. away, but not a very good one. I know I won’t be able to find a match there. Our flagship offers excellent math Phd programme, but it is an hour away. But maybe I should follow that route? There are some Phd candidates who come to lecture at math circle. Will have to investigate further.
My son is really into movie directing at this time. His best buddy and him shoot movies all the time and make up different scenarios. Really do not know anybody around that is capable of same math achievement. We do have friends that are pushing their kid in math , but they are too competitive of a crowd to start anything with…
Will keep looking, excellent suggestions…</p>
<p>Kelowna, your son sounds a lot like me when I was younger. I was able to get into a pretty good situation, though I’m not sure exactly how my parents made it work. I know that building a good relationship with school and district officials helped a lot. They were actually able to get EPGY courses subsidized for a while, so this is something to potentially look into. And that no-partial-enrollment rule can probably be relaxed. But you can’t just walk in and say “I want this rule relaxed for my son”. I’d suggest making the district or school (or both, preferably) aware of your situation, and see what they say they’re able to do about it. If all else fails, AoPS classes are great, from what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>As long as we’re throwing out things like USAMTS, I can’t help but mention ARML, my personal favorite competition, although you may well know about it already. Despite coming around only once a year, it has a strong tendency to foster communities of students that no other competition I’ve seen (short of maybe MOP) has.</p>
<p>The main ARML site is here: <a href=“http://www.arml.com%5B/url%5D”>www.arml.com</a>
The Colorado team site (am I mistaken, or is that where you are?) is here: <a href=“http://www.coloradoarml.org%5B/url%5D”>www.coloradoarml.org</a></p>
<p>I was advanced in math as a kid. In the second grade I finished every math book in the series, which went through 7th grade, by winter without any effort. My school wanted to bring a high school student in to work with me on algebra. My parents wanted me to have as normal an experience as possible, I think, so they and the school decided to have me meet with this high schooler once a week for pre-Algebra / Algebra. My third grade teacher took another approach. She marked every problem I got wrong in our textbook and would have me go back and correct them all (I made tons of thoughtless errors in math when I was younger). I sat out during many formal math lessons since I had learned it already. I would always finish quizzes and tests first in class, so my teacher would have me grade other students’ work. My fourth grade teacher taught me a couple of more advanced concepts but said very plainly that I needed to skip. Note that I was even further ahead in reading and writing and was also physically and emotionally mature. My school’s learning specialist said I could skip several grades without any problem. I skipped one and did fine. I did advance a year or two ahead in math above that, but nothing extreme. I did fine. I am in college and not even close to a math major.</p>
<p>“After competing in chess for a few years, my S never wanted to do math competitions…”</p>
<p>sac,
My son did chess from about 2nd grade through his freshman year of high school - but then he discovered the Berkeley Math Circle & math competitions. He gave up chess for math, even though chess was putting money in his pockets! I wonder if we ever crossed paths in the chess world? though it sounds like your S is a few years older than mine since mine just finished his freshman year of college.</p>
<p>On the topic of math competitions: it doesn’t seem like anyone has mentioned MathCounts yet: <a href=“http://www.mathcounts.org%5B/url%5D”>www.mathcounts.org</a>. It’s a very well-run program for middle schoolers - even if you’re not into competitions, the test questions (there are samples on the website) are challenging and fun to play around with. </p>
<p>Other than that, AOPS is a terrific resource. The courses have already been mentioned, but the forum can also be a fun place to hang out and mingle with similarly-minded “math people”.</p>
<p>Kelowna:</p>
<p>For the purposes of mentoring, it does not matter that the local college is not very good. All is needed is one good and willing person. For example, someone mentioned Tom Hull at Merrimack College. MC is not “very good” but Tom Hull is excellent. I have a friend who used to be a tenured prof at Carnegie Mellon, quit to be in industry where cutting edge research was being done, was downsized and is now teaching at a community college. The CC is not very good, but my friend has discovered he loves teaching and does not want to go back working in industry even though he could get a great, better-paying job. It’s people like that who make wonderful mentors. So I’d suggest your S investigate the local college and knock on profs’ doors. Maybe ask for advice on what to study, what to read, and let things follow from that.</p>
<p>Thanx for all the excellent sugestions. Will keep processing them…</p>
<p>I think one skill we can teach our kids is to be their own advocate. Help them be the one to talk to their teachers about getting extra work or extra time. Too often we parents swoop in at the hint of trouble or imperfection and demand justice for our gifted one. At the earlist grades I believe we parents should help our kids learn when and how to speak for themselves.</p>
<p>In the context of our math wiz kids - having them approach the teacher, ask for a convenient time to talk, discuss the problem (I finish my math class work very quickly and have extra down time), suggest a solution (is it possible for me to do an extra project, help other kids, get more complex problems, grade papers, solve world hunger, etc). It is important, of course, that they realize that teachers are busy hard working people who have many kids’ needs to consider and they should be aware of the costs (in terms of time) of what they are asking for.</p>
<p>Never underestimate the power of a polite articulate student who asks for help.</p>
<p>Very well-stated, skiers-mom. I agree with you–that has made a world of difference for my kids, too. Early on, I tried to tell them that having a good relationship with their teachers and being comfortable to approach them with issues does NOT need to be “sucking up” to the teacher, and helps them in the long run. Luckily, both of them realized that becoming their own advocate was very empowering. In a couple of cases, I had to threaten to call the teacher before they’d take control and speak up for themselves (nothing worse that potential mom-embarrassment), but you are absolutely right in your comments.</p>