Last Spring I found myself aggravated with the math program we had been using that year. My daughter was struggling in math, and I realized that part of the problem was her teacher (me), the student (her) and her math program. It didn’t give good explanations. It required too many problems. (I had her complete only half of the problems.) Every day’s lesson introduced a different concept, and she hadn’t yet grasped the previous day’s concept. The bottom line was: she didn’t understand math. I felt like a complete failure, especially because I love math, and I’ve tutored math for years. How could I fail my own daughter? Now that I was aware of her struggles, (I initially thought it was her laziness.), I was on a mission to find another math program. I began polling friends, searching websites, reading, reading and reading curriculum reviews on various programs. I finally decided to try a program which I believed provided what I wanted. After using it for a while, I was very happy that it didn’t have the problems that the previous program had. It does, however, have its own set of weaknesses.
Bottom line: There are no perfect curriculums.