I know how to do algebra, and I could write how to do it for you. But If I start writing and keep going until I explain to you how to do algebra, do you know what you'd have here ? You'd have an algebra book, just like the one you use in school.
If it were possible to explain algebra in a few paragraphs, or even in a few pages, then that's what you would use in school to learn it, instead of a book. And if it could be explained in a few minutes, or even in a few hours, then teacher would explain it all at the beginning of the year, and then you'd have the rest of the whole year to just practice it and get really good at it.
You use a book, and you spend a whole year learning it, because that's what it takes.
I shall now reveal to you the secret hidden sneaky tricks of how to do algebra:
(If you want to print this and stick it on the refrigerator, you have my full permission. This method is so good that it even works with a lot of other subjects too.)
-- Go to class every day. -- As you're sitting down, turn off your cellphone and wrap up your gum. -- Stay awake in class. -- Listen to what the teacher is saying. In your mind, make pictures of what it means. -- When you get a homework assignment, <em>write it down</em>. -- Make a place at home where you always do your homework. Make it a place where other people aren't running through. While you're there doing homework, turn off the radio and your cellphone, and take the buds out of your ears. -- <em>On the same day</em> you get the homework assignment, when you're home, sit down in the place where you do your homework, and work ALL of the examples in the assignment. (That may mean that you can't go out that night.) -- If there's something you just don't get, ask the teacher for a time to sit down together and work on it together until you understand it. That's part of the teacher's job.
If you're building a brick house, and you leave out some bricks near the bottom and keep stacking bricks above the hole, the part above the hole could come crashing down any minute, and there's no way to go back later and try and fill in the hole.
Algebra is exactly like that. Each day or two, in class and in homework, you have to use what you learned in the<em> <u>last</u></em> day or two. If there's a hole there, it's awfully tough to build anything on top of it. If you don't understand how to do something, or you blow off a couple of homeworks, there is <em>no way</em> to go back and catch up <em>later</em>.
