A student who can learn 2 years of material in a year should be 1 year ahead after 1st grade, 2 years ahead after 2nd grade, 3 years ahead after 3rd grade, and so on. Few schools are equipped to handle students who learn so quickly.
https://www.mentava.com/blog/our-seed-round Mentava is building software to support independent, accelerated K12 learning. We:
1. Teach kids to teach themselves 2. Provide software that lets them learn at their own, accelerated pace 3. Show teachers the benefits of allowing independent study in their classes
In our pilot with 30 families, it took about 50 hours to get 2-year olds reading at a 2nd grade level. That’s about 30 mins a day(!) over 3 months(!) to cover what would take multiple years in school.
Once kids have learned to read, we graduate them into math and programming. Because they’re not dependent on a live teacher, they can continue learning at an accelerated pace.
So the conventional education system is holding kids back?
Kids should be learning algebra 2 in 4th grade?
When I was in elementary school in CA in the early 70s, I attended a public school where they let top students learn at their own pace in reading and math. There were a few of us in the 4th grade reading at 7th grade level and doing high school algebra.
Fast forward 10 or so years and all that was put to a stop because we couldn’t let the other kids be embarrassed for not doing as well. So yes, the conventional education system has been holding kids back for awhile.
When I was in 2nd grade and frantically enjoying my newly found power of reading, my three years older brother taught me how to hide my forbidden book inside an ostentatiously propped up big textbook, and warned me to keep track of what teacher was saying so I would not get “caught out”.
I was free!
Education, religion, housing, work, war, money, are ALL in rapidly increasing disarray and heading off their different cliffs.