Algebra and the Fourth Grader

Schools across the country are introducing material earlier and earlier in some sort of race for test scores. The brain is a developing organ, and teaching Algebra in fourth grade is probably premature. Ten year old brains are not able to grasp concepts that abstract. They can memorize a+b=c, but they simply cannot understand it, much less corollaries like a-c=b. They need concrete numbers with the concepts implied. I studied algebra in high school, and it was a revelation for me. I fell in love with math. I am not a mathematician, but my understanding of abstract math concepts made my thinking richer. It might be better for young minds to study a second language.
Learning language is a skill small children are very well eqipped for. Babies unconciously learn grammar and apply it consistenly. Language expresses culture, and every culture has its own approach to the world. Children who grow up speaking two or more languages have a more complex approach to the world, and their brains approach thinking with more flexibility and complexity. There are millions of bilingual children and adults in the world, and for the most part, they are unaware of their own sopisticated views because language is an unconcious skill.
Translation is the art of making new literature out of the original. No translation is a perfect expression of the original. This fact frustrates me no end. I really would like to read Hesse's Magic Mountain in the original. The English translation is breathtaking, but I do not know what Hesse really did, and without pretty advanced German, I cannot find out.
Try this. Go to the library and take down the King James Bible and Robert Alter's translation of the Psalms from the original ancient Hebrew. Pick your second favorite Psalm and and read it in King James. Then read Alter's translation. The men who wrote the King James Bible were wonderful poets, but they did not translate from the original Hebrew. They read Hebrew, and used it for inspiration. The two pieces of literature have nearly no relationship. A child of three can unconciously know this, and his thinking is richer, but his brain is concrete, and abstract math concepts are beyond him. They are beyond the average fourth grader, too. I'm afraid we are creating a generion people seriously blocked against math. Where will we get our scientits and mathemeticians? The average fourth grader is not deeply invested in academic achievement to begin with. To teach and test her on concepts she cannot grasp creats failure and frustrated, angry teachers. The kids hate school, and the teachers don't want to teach failure.