<resent -- left off the g in python.org> There is a small fraction of students I get who cannot learn algebra, ever, no matter what I or anybody else does. I don't know why that is. But there is a larger number which I could not teach algebra until after I had taught them geometry. So we fixed things by requiring them to take geometry before algebra. Now you have got me wondering if the difference wasn't the geometry, but simply that they were one year older, which has never occurred to me before. (So thank you.) Do you have many students who are good at geometry and still rotten at algebra? Also what do they say when you ask them 'what don't you understand here?' thanks very much, Laura