Wow psusue, great post! To a non-algebrain like me (I was the geometry/trig/stats type), this makes a lot of sense.
MysticCat, I think your son has to look at this at a macro versus micro level also. School is about learning about all sorts of stuff, even that which you don't have an affinity for, or like. I'd bet big money that the vast majority of us took classes in something that we despised, and thought that they were "stupid" to take. I hated algebra and calculus. And I would rather stick knitting needles in my eyeballs than do a puzzle. My husband, the B.S. in math/2 masters degrees in math related areas, hated foreign languages-suffered through 4 years of French, including French literature. He, as a science/math/engineering dude, thought it was worthless, as he was not going to use it with his work. Was going to make SURE that he would never need it in any job he took. Ehh. At times we just have to suck it up and do it. That in itself is a life skill. We will always have situations where we don't want to do something, but we must do it anyways. And try our best to do so. Sorry, not much help. But I did like this blog that discusses algebra in high school, as it seems to be a much discussed subject all over the country. I also found the replies quite interesting also.
http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-bl...ebra-ii-maybe/
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