Detective Rosa Diaz (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
died8yearsago) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2021-09-15 05:00 am
died8yearsago) wrote in fandomhigh2021-09-15 05:00 am
Entry tags:
Math; Wednesday, First Period [09/15].
If the students couldn't tell by the way Rosa came in just slightly behind the start of class and threw her math textbook (which looked like it had probably been thrown quite a few times as a variety of different things but mostly walls and possibly through at least one window) on the desk with a sigh that there was very clearly nothing else she would rather be doing right now that teaching another dumb math class. Definitely no actual work or anything she could be doing, nope, just math, apparently, but at least it would be over soon and eventually, she might even get to the point where she decided she wasn't going to let a stupid moose dictate her life like this, dammit.
That thought seemed to play in her mind a little as she looked at that book, but, this time, for yet another week, the moose and the book won out and she turned her attention to the students.
"Right," she said. "Algebra today. Which seemed to be where we lost some of you on the assessment test, so this should be fun. But most algebra isn't really that hard; some of it is ridiculous and stupid, sure, but the basic stuff is really just like solving a puzzle or a mystery. Or a crime. Where a or b or x is like the suspect, and you've got to figure out who it is so the rest of it all fits together. For example..."
She turned toward the board, saw that it was still a chalkboard despite her request to get it updated to a whiteboard so that, you know, certain claws weren't a bit of an issue anymore, wasn't at all surprised that her request had been ignored, and wrote out:
2 + a = 4
"This is an easy one," she said, which meant that if you struggled with it....yikes. "It's an addition problem, so all you have to do is use the opposite, subtraction, to figure out the value of a. What's 4 minus 2? 2. So two plus two will equal four. A is two. What else could it be? It can't be one, because two plus 1 equals three. It can't be three. Two plus three equals five. So, therefor, it has to be two."
Then she wrote out:
2 x b = 10
"This one's a bit harder. Multiplication. But we can use the opposite, division, to figure it out. What's 10 divided by two? Five. So B equals 5. Two times five? Ten. Not two times three. Not two times four. Two times five. Simple."
This was followed by:
2x + 3 = 9
"And now we're getting fancy. When you see one of the letters up next to a number like that, that means multiply. So what number, multiplied by two, plus three, gets us to nine? This is when we start breaking it down and really getting into the mystery. First, we can take care of that extra three. Get rid of it, it's just making things messy, so we're taking it away from nine. Nine minus three? Six. So now that that's out of the way, we have 2 times X equals six. Or, another way to look at it, six divided by two. Three. You times two by three to get six. X equals six.
"Same concept if it's minus:
4y - 4 = 12
"So, let's get rid of the minus 4 part by adding it to the 12. Sixteen. Now our equation is 4 times y equals 16. What's 16 divided by four? Four. You multiliply 4 by four to get sixteen. Minus 4 to make it twelve. Ta-dah. Y equals 4."
She set down the chalk, wiped some dust off her hands and realized that her black wardrobe was probably going to be a problem in this class until they changed that board, and turned to the class.
"You followed all that, right?" she asked, and, for their sake, she hopes that they did, because she didn't know how else to explain it and it should be interesting if they didn't. "Let's just....practice some of it, I guess. I'll call your name, you'll come up to the board," she winced in advance for Malia's turn, "I'll give you a problem, and we'll see if you can work it out, either by yourself or with help from the class. Or...something."
She didn't know. She didn't teach math!
That thought seemed to play in her mind a little as she looked at that book, but, this time, for yet another week, the moose and the book won out and she turned her attention to the students.
"Right," she said. "Algebra today. Which seemed to be where we lost some of you on the assessment test, so this should be fun. But most algebra isn't really that hard; some of it is ridiculous and stupid, sure, but the basic stuff is really just like solving a puzzle or a mystery. Or a crime. Where a or b or x is like the suspect, and you've got to figure out who it is so the rest of it all fits together. For example..."
She turned toward the board, saw that it was still a chalkboard despite her request to get it updated to a whiteboard so that, you know, certain claws weren't a bit of an issue anymore, wasn't at all surprised that her request had been ignored, and wrote out:
"This is an easy one," she said, which meant that if you struggled with it....yikes. "It's an addition problem, so all you have to do is use the opposite, subtraction, to figure out the value of a. What's 4 minus 2? 2. So two plus two will equal four. A is two. What else could it be? It can't be one, because two plus 1 equals three. It can't be three. Two plus three equals five. So, therefor, it has to be two."
Then she wrote out:
"This one's a bit harder. Multiplication. But we can use the opposite, division, to figure it out. What's 10 divided by two? Five. So B equals 5. Two times five? Ten. Not two times three. Not two times four. Two times five. Simple."
This was followed by:
"And now we're getting fancy. When you see one of the letters up next to a number like that, that means multiply. So what number, multiplied by two, plus three, gets us to nine? This is when we start breaking it down and really getting into the mystery. First, we can take care of that extra three. Get rid of it, it's just making things messy, so we're taking it away from nine. Nine minus three? Six. So now that that's out of the way, we have 2 times X equals six. Or, another way to look at it, six divided by two. Three. You times two by three to get six. X equals six.
"Same concept if it's minus:
"So, let's get rid of the minus 4 part by adding it to the 12. Sixteen. Now our equation is 4 times y equals 16. What's 16 divided by four? Four. You multiliply 4 by four to get sixteen. Minus 4 to make it twelve. Ta-dah. Y equals 4."
She set down the chalk, wiped some dust off her hands and realized that her black wardrobe was probably going to be a problem in this class until they changed that board, and turned to the class.
"You followed all that, right?" she asked, and, for their sake, she hopes that they did, because she didn't know how else to explain it and it should be interesting if they didn't. "Let's just....practice some of it, I guess. I'll call your name, you'll come up to the board," she winced in advance for Malia's turn, "I'll give you a problem, and we'll see if you can work it out, either by yourself or with help from the class. Or...something."
She didn't know. She didn't teach math!