Hot Math

Last week our grand daughter called and said that she was having some problems with her homework. I asked her which class and she said Algebra 1. Well it has been over forty years since I've done any algebra but I said I would give it a shot. She read me the problem, but I couldn't visualize what it was asking for. I asked her if she had anything in her book she could refer to, or if she had just not been listening in class. She said that the teacher had told the class that if they had problems they could go to the Internet for help. The bad news is that where my grand daughter lives they don't have the Internet, cable, or a computer able to get it. I asked her for the site and she said go to Hotmath.com. 

Things now got interesting. I went to the site and it asked me what book I was using. So I asked my grand daughter and she gave me the name of the textbook  she was using. Sure enough it was there. After clicking on it the next question was what page and which problem. I entered the page number and the problem number I got from Makayla and sure enough it showed me the problem in writing just as she had read it to me. It then said that I could get the answer to the problem by logging in as a member. To get the answer for the problem it would cost me $54 to sign up. I could see that some answers were "free" but this wasn't one of them. I could also get video tutoring for $17.

So it has come to this. What students don't learn in school they can buy the answers if they have the money. Not only is this available but it is told to the students by the teachers. Does this mean that if they can't get it done they can just let the Internet do it for them? Anyway, those that have the money can assist their kids with this extra help, if that is what you want to call it, while those without the finances have to fend on their own. You learn that in economics class.

Unfortunately, I didn't think that buying the answers was a good idea, so I told Makayla to see if she could make friends with the smartest person in her class, and get some free tutoring. Second option would be to ask the teacher if she could explain it again, and third but not least, reread the information leading up to the problem until it possibly made sense.