This seems so strange to me, this sharp distinction between algebra and non-algebra. I might have gone to school in the Soviet system so everything was backwards and such but we were introduced to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_algebra very early and just did simple expression transformations, variable substitutions. That was a lot early than 8th grade. I even taught my 2nd grader a few of those.
I have observed the curriculum so far in US, at least up until the 2nd grade and it's a hot mess. Even for double digit addition problems they jump right into "cool tricks" and "mathematical thinking" while there are just really a few steps to memorize and, guess what, kids are great at memorizing stuff. Later on it's time to show a few short-cuts and kids even discover those themselves.
Now going back to algebra, I am firm believer that a simplified version of this has to be introduced much earlier. It's a bit like a spiral, do basic arithmetic, geometry, number line manipulation, simple word problems, next year do the same but more complicated, add some algebra in there and so on.
But I guess that's just too boring and teachers, and probably higher level authorities, decide that they need to do "something" so they start making changes just to they can slap something on their resume. Developers do that too some extent, "here let me rewrite all this..." we can certainly understand that, but doesn't mean it's a good thing.
I have observed the curriculum so far in US, at least up until the 2nd grade and it's a hot mess. Even for double digit addition problems they jump right into "cool tricks" and "mathematical thinking" while there are just really a few steps to memorize and, guess what, kids are great at memorizing stuff. Later on it's time to show a few short-cuts and kids even discover those themselves.
Now going back to algebra, I am firm believer that a simplified version of this has to be introduced much earlier. It's a bit like a spiral, do basic arithmetic, geometry, number line manipulation, simple word problems, next year do the same but more complicated, add some algebra in there and so on.
But I guess that's just too boring and teachers, and probably higher level authorities, decide that they need to do "something" so they start making changes just to they can slap something on their resume. Developers do that too some extent, "here let me rewrite all this..." we can certainly understand that, but doesn't mean it's a good thing.