Don't rush to, or through, calculus
by DPatrick, Jan 17, 2011, 7:07 PM
Today the New York Times published a letter to the editor by a Middlebury College professor that echoes the concerns in our article The Calculus Trap. Specifically, from the letter in the Times:
We certainly agree. To take one example that the letter writer mentions, the rigorous definition of a limit is not part of the AP Calculus curriculum. Nor, I suspect, do most AP Calculus courses cover the proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, which is the most fundamental (duh) part of the calculus.
If you are satisfied with just using calculus as a computational tool, then AP Calculus may be adequate. If, however, you want to understand calculus, the AP curriculum will not do much for you.
Rest assured, our calculus course includes both
and 
.
Quote:
More problematic, however, is the rushing through high school mathematics to get to A.P. calculus, while simultaneously accumulating A.P. courses in other areas...At the end of all this, a number of bright, hard-working students have shockingly weak algebra skills...Having used their A.P. credits to get into Middlebury, a number of our students try to take calculus again, saying, “I know I got a 5 on the exam, but I didn’t really understand it.”
If you are satisfied with just using calculus as a computational tool, then AP Calculus may be adequate. If, however, you want to understand calculus, the AP curriculum will not do much for you.
Rest assured, our calculus course includes both
and 
.
September 2012
May 2012