Saturday 16 August 2003

The next morning I awoke with hope that things could get better. At work I was dealt another blow. I was informed that I was to be suspended from teaching the following day (with pay again) for use of an inappropriate classroom example.

I had taught the course of Algebra I in seven of my ten years in teaching. In each of those seven years I used the same analogy when introducing multi-step equations. I picked it up from another teacher who'd used it and knew of about a dozen others who'd used it as well. A problem looks like this:

The mathematically correct way to solve the problem is a process known as "isolating the variable," namely x, to realize that the division bar acts as a grouping symbol, that the division by three is the same as multiplication by one-third, that the one-third is the last operation used in the order of operations and to multiply both sides by its inverse (three), that the next operation is the addition of four and to add its inverse to both sides (negative four), then finally multiplying both sides by the inverse of two (which is one-half) to obtain a solution of x = 7.

My god, are you still awake through all that crap?

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