JOHN WAS RIGHT! — SOME THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED — EVEN AFTER MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS!
Homeschool educators are constantly faced with the dilemma of deciding whether or not their son or daughter needs to take a separate high school geometry course because some academic institution wants to see geometry on the high school transcript. Or, because the publishers offer it as a separate math textbook in their curriculum – implying it is to be taken as a separate course. Remembering, of course, that selling three different math textbooks books brings in more revenue than selling just two different math textbooks will.
John Saxon’s unique methodology of combining algebra in the geometric plane and geometry in the algebraic plane all in the same math textbook had solved that dilemma facing home school educators for these past twenty-five years. However, unknown to John, this same problem had been addressed over a hundred years earlier at the University of Chicago.
Knowledge of this information came to me by way of a gift from my wife and her two sisters. Since 2003, after their mom and dad had passed away, my wife and her sisters had been going through some fifty years of papers and books accumulated by their parents and stored in the attic and basement of the house they all grew up in. When asked by friends why it was taking them so long, one of the daughters replied “Mom and Dad took more than a half century to fill the house with their memories. It won’t hurt to take a couple more years to go through them.”
Among some of the treasures they found in the basement were letters to their great-grandfather written by a fellow soldier while both were on active duty in the Union Army. One of these letters was written to their great-grandfather while his friend was assigned to “Picket Duty” on the “Picket Line.” His fellow Union Soldier and friend was describing to his friend (their great-grandfather) the dreary rainy day he was experiencing. He wrote that he thought it was much more dangerous being on “Picket Duty” than being on the front lines, as the “Rebels” were always sneaking up and shooting at them from out of nowhere.
The treasure they found for me was an old math book that their father had used while a sophomore in high school in 1917. The book is titled “Geometric Exercises for Algebraic Solutions – Second Year Mathematics for Secondary Schools.” It was published by the University of Chicago Press in October of 1907.
The authors of the book were professors of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Chicago, and they addressed the problem facing high school students in their era. Students who had just barely grasped the concepts of the algebra 1 text, only to be thrown into a non-algebraic geometry textbook and then, a year or more later being asked to grasp the more complicated concepts of an algebra 2 textbook. The book they had written contained algebraic concepts combined with geometry. It was designed as a supplement to a geometry textbook so the students would continue to use algebraic concepts and not forget them.
John never mentioned these authors — or the book — so I can only assume he never knew it existed. For if he had, I feel certain that it would have been one more shining light for him to shine in the faces of the high-minded academicians that he — as did these authors — thought were wreaking havoc with mathematics in the secondary schools.
In the preface of their textbook, the professors had written:
“The reasons against the plan in common vogue in secondary schools of breaking the continuity of algebra by dropping it for a whole year after barely starting it, are numerous and strong . . . With no other subject of the curriculum does a loss of continuity and connectiveness work so great a havoc as with mathematics . . . To attain high educational results from any body of mathematical truths, once grasped, it is profoundly important that subsequent work be so planned and executed as to lead the learner to see their value and to feel their power through manifold uses.”
So, should you blame the publishers for publishing a separate geometry textbook? Or is it the fault of misguided high-minded academicians who – after more than a hundred years – still demand a separate geometry text from the publishers? I am not sure, but thankfully, this decision need not yet face the homeschool educators using John Saxon’s math books for the original Homeschool third editions of John Saxon’s Algebra one half, Algebra one and Algebra two textbooks still contain geometry as well as algebra – as does the advanced mathematics textbook. In fact, John introduces some basic algebraic and geometric concepts as early as the sixth grade in the second and third editions of his sixth grade Math 76 book.
Any home school student – using John Saxon’s Homeschool math textbooks – who successfully completes Algebra one, (2nd or 3rd editions), Algebra 2, (2nd or 3rd editions), and at least the first sixty lessons of the Advanced Mathematics (2nd edition) textbook, has covered the same material found in any high school algebra one, algebra two and geometry math textbook – including two-column formal proofs. Their high school transcripts – as I point out in my book – can accurately reflect completion of an algebra one, algebra two, and a separate geometry course.
When home school educators tell me they are confused because the school website offers different materials than what is offered to them on the Homeschool website, I remind them that – unless they want to purchase a hardback version of their soft back textbook – they do not need anything being offered on the Saxon school website. In fact, they are getting a better curriculum by staying on the Homeschool website. You can still purchase the original versions of John Saxon’s math textbooks that he intended be used to develop “mastery” as recommended by the University of Chicago mathematics professors over a hundred years ago.
Because many of you do not have a copy of my book, I have reproduced that list from page 15 of the book so you can see what editions of John Saxon’s original math books are still good whether acquired used or new. These editions will easily remain excellent math textbooks for several more decades.
Math 54 – The hard cover second edition – or – the new soft cover third edition.
Math 65 – The hard cover second edition edition – or – the the new soft cover third edition.
Math 76 – The hard cover third edition edition – or – the the new soft cover fourth edition.
Math 87 – The hard cover second edition edition – or – the the new soft cover third edition.
Algebra ½ – The hard cover third edition.
Algebra 1 – The hard cover third edition.
Algebra 2 – Thehard cover second edition – or – the third editions.
Advanced Mathematics – The hard cover second edition.
Calculus – The hard cover first – or second edition.
Physics – hard cover first edition (there is no second edition of this book).