On Saxon Math

I’d recommend against Saxon. It’s a big mistake; I don’t know how anyone would want to use it. It does have some (attempted) virtues: it focuses on the math, casting out the irrelevancies; it gives the student long-term practice of math concepts and methods; it presents things in bit-sized pieces. But in their attempt to present math in bit-sized pieces, they shatter the whole of math into fragments. I could not possibly teach from Saxon books. Impossible. I would not be able to delve into an idea as it is natural to do, and as reason demands. (Only a good teacher would have the judgment to navigate the book…if the teacher was forced to use it; and the book would of necessity have to be supplemented.) And when about two to four exercises are given for idea A, followed by about two more per section until idea A is built upon — sometimes 50 or 100 pages later! — students are not allowed to grasp and master a concept as they should, to see it in its full variety, and to carry out a critical aspect of reasoning: integrating a concept into the whole of one’s knowledge. But Saxon “works?” Yes, it accomplishes a little — but at what price? And what is it missing out on? It leaves a lot to be desired — which I’ll address some other day. Saxon: Don’t do it. (Unless they improve their methods some day…which is possible…but which would require a big change in the Saxon approach…)