My Son Knows Algebra (somehow!)

By Deborah Uhler (Deborah_in_ca) on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 - 11:40 am:

I had to tell somebody this! My son will be 14 in March. This is his second year out of public school. (He was labeled a math failure in 6th grade.) Long story short, he asked me out of the blue one day if I could get a book that explained Algebra. As fate would have it, I found one at Costco. It's really an "Algebra in 20 lessons" book for first year college students to help them brush up on Algebra they learned in high school. (I was secretly panicked for a second, and while he was asleep, tried to do the first lesson and just didn't get it!) Anyway, yesterday, he read Lesson 1, did all the problems. Aced them. Then he did Lesson 2 (quite more difficult). The problems were each a string of algabraic expressions that ran from left to right halfway across the page. You want some paper to help you work these out? No, that just confuses me, he said. I watched in awe as, in his head, he went down the list, zipped out an answer to each problem. LO AND BEHOLD they were all correct!

How did you know how to do THAT? I dunno. Guess I'm just smart, he replied with a BWG.

I have a sneaking suspicion he picked this ability up playing Everquest, as well as from teaching himself how to build a website, etc.

A big thank you for this website, for these discussion boards ... without you he (and I) would probably NEVER have had the courage to unschool.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!