Not Your Father's Sixth Grade Math Class
The Eleven-Year-Old's math homework involves rotation matrices. I don't think I even saw a rotation matrix until tenth grade.
What was my sixth grade math class like? Ah, now I remember. I didn't have one. We had an open classroom. We spent our time constructing "rabbits" with artificial genomes and tracing Mendelian inheritance down the generations, and playing a lot of Conway's "Life" on the classroom's Go board. That and listening to Mr. Karman read Arthur C. Clarke's "Rescue Party"--those were the highlights.
