Tell Me About Math In Your Country

My 14 year old son is a freshman in high school and he's taking Algebra. You know, fun with polynomials and slopes of graphs and all that fun stuff.

When you were 14 (or if you are ) what level of math were you taking? This isn't a question for super math ninjas who skipped three years of math classes but the average student in your region of the world. I (and my son) want to know what the average 14 year old studies in math class where you are.

2nd level algebra?

Geometry?

Trigonometry?

Calculus?

Something else?

When I was in high school, most freshmen would either be in Algebra 1, or maybe Geometry / a combined Algebra 1 and Geometry course if they had taken a summer class or had a teacher recommendation. For the US, your son seems to be right on track :)

my freshmen math teacher didn't teach. i have ADD so i was placed in remedial classes and i ended up being stuck with a teacher who didn't teach anything.
everyone was just goofing around and sometimes kids from other classes would join our class just to chill out.
at times fights would break out and it was the students that broke up the fight while the teacher sat on his fat ass and did nothing.

eventually that teacher got fired and i got tired of the bullshit so i asked to get out of those classes.
it wasn't until i got into a community college that i learned algebra 1 and 2. and passed both.

I had a horrible time with math. Sixth grade was the year I had pre-algebra, I failed it but still moved on to middle school. Seventh grade had pre-algebra, failed it with F's. Eight grade had to be put into the delinquent math class with the kids who ditched and misbehaved just because I can't comprehend math, I also had to go to math tutoring in the classroom next door everyday after school, failed both, but since I did excellent with all my other subjects I still continued on to the next grade. Now I moved to high school, ninth grade I am in pre-algebra yet again, and fail it with F's. Get sent to "Satelite" the delinquent school for some reason I guess because of my difficulties with math, so it was tenth grade at satelite with which I have pre-algebra and have to stay after every day with a math tutor who sounded like Ben Stein, that the teacher tells me "I'm dropping you from math, you can't do it." Thank God for him! I did many other electives, a ridiculous amount of electives like ceramics, 5 art classes, 2 band classes, keyboard, flora-culture, hospitality class, and more to make up the lack of math so I could get my diploma.

I threw my maths textbook away but I recalled I was already doing algebra when I was 13.

I really appreciate all the replies. I hope to get a broader world perspective on school-age math in other countries.

I don't remember for sure what we studied in Austia in Math when I was 14. I do remember when I was 16 when I moved to the US I was able to skip a grade due to my taking advantage of some confusion by US school administration, and when they sorted it out I had already proven that I had no problems with being one year ahead. I remember being a 4.0 student in the US, but before I came here I could not have had a perfect score in all subjects despite being a really good student. I remember one year in math, our professor in Austria gave everyone in the class the equivalent of a C or a D, there were no As or Bs on any transcript that year because they did not grade on a curve and noone deserved a good grade, and I remember my dad was furious with me and just because noone else got a good grade was not a good enough excuse for why I did not. I remember hearing in Austria about kids committing suicide because of grades and school pressure. In Austria there were also different public schools: the school I was in was preparing students for someday going to college, but other kids went to other schools that were much easier and where the level of math for example would not have been adequate for college admission, and it was around age ten that it was decided wether a kid was to be on track to go to college or not, and around age 13 or so we decided the approximate major - thus I studied a lot more languages, while other kids were more on a math/science track, and while this does not mean that I had no math and science but I just had many more hours of languages: I would have Latin lessons while others would take additional chemistry for example. Lots more memorization, lots more oral exams, many fewer multiple choice exams than in the US. Does this answer your question kind of? Note I expanded beyond math because math was not my primary interest anyway even though even in math I felt like I was very well prepared to skip a grade once I moved to the US.

Nobody from Britain yet so here's my best recollection...Firstly 14 makes you a Year 9. We take our GCSEs in Years 10-11 so it's not that advanced. Sure algebra and stuff but nothing like Calculus (Which is college stuff) Trigonometry is learned in years 10 and 11 to go with the GCSEs, along with quadratic equations and more advanced related things. Graphs and plotting them are here also (things like using f(x) with graphs (Which is the top of an A* and I'm unfamiliar with them). If you're familiar with the A, B, C, D grades etc. an average year 9 works at just under a C (supposed to) which is equivalent to a level 6 (If you know what they are; these are used for KS3 (Key Stage 3) which is years 7-9 (12-14), the grades and levels go up respectively (So a Level 8 is a B and a 9 is an A (But we don't actually get past a Level 8, which is the top in itself). A lot of terms such as Geometry aren't used here as widely and as much as I hear they are in America and such (to be honest I'm not sure what it actually is, and I've taken my GCSEs and got an A). On a side note we call is MATHS, not MATH because to me MATH sounds annoying. It is divided into sub categories like Number, Algebra and others (can't remember the others). Does this help?