Going through High School, at 43 years old!

[Cygnus X1]

So, I am trying my best to explain algebra 101 to my ninth grade son, going through the same concept for the umpteenth time in three weeks, but he just can't seem to grasp the concept of combining "like variables", such as 1x + 5x equals 6x, very basic stuff he has already covered since I think the fourth grade, because of the way they want to teach. So he forgets the basics as they make yet another go around at dissimilar fractions or some other principle... Arg!. I can see why he can't master it, even though he has very good deductive (critical) thinking skills. They never allow the student to "master a concept" before going on to the next...I know I had some problems at first, but was fortunate enough to have a great (not pretty at all, BTW), algebra teacher who made sure that everyone got each step, then went on to the next. When someone would falter, the whole class went through it again, because she knew she had failed to teach it. Not to say nobody failed, it's just that it has gotten so frustrating to me, when I can spot a problem and know now intuitively how to go about it, but I can't teach it for him to understand. Frustrating, I know nearly every parent would say, my child isn't stupid, it must be the teaching, but I have worked with him enough to know his capacity for deductive reasoning. Shit, we talk Hawking's cosmic theorys and quantum mechanics in layman's terms. Both of us learning string theory and how it applies to the laws of physics we have learned on a conceptual basis. But back to basics algebra?
Any suggestions on how to get past this roadbock? Good internet teaching resources? The textbooks frankly stink...I'm seriously thinking about home schooling before it's too late.

[texasfury]

sometimes it's bad teaching. I took a college algebra class and got a B, but I truthfully can say I was lost at the end. I had to retake it when I tranferred to another school. This time I had great teachers and I aced every class, from algebra intro, to the algerbra/trig class. Then I took calculus a year later, and from day one I was like 'huh". Supposedly the only prerequisite for calc is algebra, but this teacher was really bad.

It seems your son hasn't grasped the concept of what a variable is, that they are placeholders you move around until you can finally assign a value, or eliminate. Assuming he knows his basic math well, if you can get him to grasp the variable thing, then everything else should then flow better.

[Cygnus X1]

Thanks, TF, he gets the variable concept. He's having trouble with substitution to cancel out "like" variables, and thus taking it to a simpler equation by expanding it, etc. I was just hoping there was some kind of Internet help on it. I'm getting lazy, I guess. I'll google it.

[Newc]

I didn't do too bad with Algebra I, but I had bad Algebra II teachers. On top of that, we had subs just about every week, and one even had the gall to say "nevermind what the book says, you'll do it the way I teach it or you'll get an F!"

I did it her way and STILL got the F.

I went through a GED prep course and the instructor explained it to me in terms I could understand. WHen it came time to take the GED, I had a flashback to my old teachers' ways and botched it.

I did get the highest State Standard scores for Writing and Science, though

[NextInLine]

I'm still having education at the college as a computer engineer candidate. And people always ask me to teach them programming languages and I have the very same problem of telling them the variable concept

To me the best way of teaching what variables are is using boxes. You should find a couple of boxes of 2 different kind. Name them "x" and "y" (don't know if he's also learning 2 variable equations if not that's even better ) And tell him you can pu anything in the boxes but once you put something in an X you should put all the same in the others.

Then take something that's not a box, I don't know may be apples! Do additions and substractions with apples and do the same with the boxes. Just show him that you can change what you put in those boxes but you can't change apples which are not variables For me this concept has always worked!

Good luck and glad for your son that he has a good father like you!..

[marcus]

The equation 1x + 5x = 6x follows from the distributive law of multiplication:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributivity

[Rsmacker]

Tell him to go to school, throw his books on the floor, declare he is an artist, a musician, dammit, and he doesn't need to be oppressed by their algebra horseshit. He'll be in the canteen where they can find him if they want to suck his balls. I bet Beethoven didn't have to put up with algebra...etc etc.

If he does, you'll definitely be home-schooling him.

[mhalsey]

They never allow the student to "master a concept" before going on to the next...

This is a problem that will soon be addressed by the schools here - next year maybe. They plan to change things so the emphasis is on quality vs. quantity - spending more time on one particular area rather than trying to whip thru everything and then move on to the next learning task.

[JetFixxxer]

I never grasp Algebra in High School or even in the Algebra college course I took in the Military. It finally grasp it when I was getting my license to work on aircraft. The instructor did a great job of explaining it.

[Spivonious]

Ditto on the suggested box method.

Also try this:

1x + 5x

Plug in a random number for x, let's say 2.

1(2) + 5(2)

Show that you can factor out the 2.

(2)(1+5) = (2)(6)

Now show how you can factor out the x.

x(1+5) = x(6)

So therefore, 1x + 5x = 6x. If he is still having trouble with this basic concept, then I don't know what to do. Or maybe since he seems to be interested in Astrophysics, try to make the lesson oriented around that so it keeps his interest.

On a somewhat related sidenote, my wife and I were unpacking last night and we came across an old worksheet from high school where you had to factor polynomials to get the answer to a riddle. It took me a bit to get the brain working again, but I got the answer. "What does a skier do when he retires? He goes downhill." +1 for cheesy math riddles

[fett]

Never have the Assistant Prinicipal be your highschool algebra teacher.:ROTF: It didn't work for me. I was lost in highschool algebra and geometry. I was really smart back then but my little brain just could not grasp it. Good luck, Dad.

[monk]

Does he have a problem with numbers in general? If so, maybe he is suffering from "dyscalculia"? If the kid is smart enough to enjoy the writings of Hawking it is strange that he has problems with such things as "1x + 5x = 6x" after 5 years of learning.

On the other hand, trying to teach people math can be really hard. I remember trying to explain why 3 - (-5) = 8. I used concepts like "if you remove a debt you actually gain something" but it didnt work. I gave up

[Cygnus X1]

Tell him to go to school, throw his books on the floor, declare he is an artist, a musician, dammit, and he doesn't need to be oppressed by their algebra horseshit. He'll be in the canteen where they can find him if they want to suck his balls. I bet Beethoven didn't have to put up with algebra...etc etc.

If he does, you'll definitely be home-schooling him.

Rsmacker, subbing in for Bill today...?
Yeah, that would be great, he's like me, a very talented draftsman, but not that great of an "artist"...they wouldn't buy it and probably piss test, take hair samples and draw blood to see what happened...

[Valeck]

Replace x by "Beans" or whatever. It ALWAYS works.

[Cygnus X1]

To me the best way of teaching what variables are is using boxes. You should find a couple of boxes of 2 different kind. Name them "x" and "y" (don't know if he's also learning 2 variable equations if not that's even better ) And tell him you can pu anything in the boxes but once you put something in an X you should put all the same in the others.

Then take something that's not a box, I don't know may be apples! Do additions and substractions with apples and do the same with the boxes. Just show him that you can change what you put in those boxes but you can't change apples which are not variables For me this concept has always worked!

Good luck and glad for your son that he has a good father like you!..

Great tip, NIL, I'll try it. And yes, it's distributive properties we are trying to work on. The book examples he's working with aren't very descriptive, and his teacher also wants to bypass it with her own way, but she's a first year (hottie, I hear), and gets impatient with notes and questions. What gets me is I did falter at first, but after "getting it", it was a thing of beauty to me, like a religous experience in thinking skills. I still know I use the same concepts when sorting out multiple cause and effects in troubleshooting, where more than one component of a problem contributes to the whole. Like this Czech Republic backwards-wired Dean I'm repairing.