The area of a parallelogram?

This morning I taught two 6th grade math classes. I started substituting in response to an incident a few years ago when my daughter’s science teacher was absent for over 60 days. Unfortunately, every student in her class was far behind in their science education at the end of the school year. That summer I realized I had two possible responses: continue to complain that the school had no qualified subs or I could become a sub. So, I became a substitute.

Over the years as my schedule allows, I teach math, or science up to Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry classes in high school. With the pandemic the need for qualified subs has been affecting all schools in drastic ways. My local school district had to go partial virtual for high school because of a lack of qualified substitutes. I decided to post this not to point out what I am doing but to make the reader aware of the issue.

Do you really think we can be engineers?

Lastly, I will tell you a short story. A number of years ago I was filling in for a Biology class because the teacher’s father had cancer and she was the caregiver. Two students caught my eye in particular how they worked and enjoyed the subject matter. One day I mentioned to the young students “how are my future engineers doing?” Six weeks later I came back to teach and those two students said to me “Mr. Lowery, the last time you were here you called us future engineers. Do you really think we can be engineers? I responded “Most definitely you two can be engineers, you need to get good grades in math and science. But for sure you can be engineers if you put in the effort.” The students walked away smiling thinking about what they could become. I may never know if my interaction with that student or any the multitudes that I have interacted over the years will make a difference. But I am sure glad that I decided to be a substitute. If you ever thought about helping out at your local school feel free to contact me. If I can be assistance I sure will. I can assure you the students and their teachers would appreciate the help. Stay safe and healthy everyone.

How do you calculate an area of a parallelogram?

I would be remiss if I did not cover the math. Parallelograms and rectangles have many similarities. One such similarities is calculating their area. The area of a parallelogram is found by multiplying the base and the height of the parallelogram. The area of a rectangle is found by multiplying the length and the width of the rectangle. Since in a parallelogram, the base is the length of the parallelogram, and the height is the width of the parallelogram, both areas are found by multiplying the length and the width.

#students, #substitutes, #engineers, #math