Real-Life Math
It's Monday morning and you have just been called by your supervisor
to substitute for one of the other teacher aides who called in sick. Usually,
you work with Grades 1 through 6 at the elementary school. But today you are
needed to work with Grade 9.
You have to stay sharp on your math skills
because often it is you, rather than the teacher, that some students are learning
from. "Often, being a teacher aide means working one on one with any age of
student at any given time," says aide Jill Dykeman.
Dykeman is talking
about the fact that many aides are shared from classroom to classroom, depending
on the needs of the students and teachers. "Sometimes you are on call,
and can be called in at 7 that morning to work with Grade 12s, when the day
before you were working with Grade 3s."
You go into the classroom and
are assigned a student to work with. You need to help them understand the
following algebraic equation:
x = (a + b) (c + d)
a
= 3, b = 4, c = 5, d = 1