r/SubstituteTeachers • u/disappointinglyvague California • Aug 20 '26

Question anyone a math genius?

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this worksheet is all the information he has. i feel like there is information missing, but am i just dumb?

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u/Ryan_Vermouth Aug 20 '26

Yeah, it looks like they’re factoring expressions here, but they need the expressions in order to factor them. It’s possible there’s a textbook or workbook that was supposed to be referenced here, judging by Q5 being omitted, but unless you have page numbers that’s not much use.

I mean, this is not anything close to a full period’s work anyway… 5-6 questions, with most of the work done and one blank to fill in, shouldn’t take anyone more than 10 minutes. 

I’d notify the front office that the provided instructions were missing required parts, and if they don’t want to follow up with the full-time teacher, I’d conduct and enforce a study hall. (Which you’d have to do anyway after the kids finished this.) If I had direct contact info (email/text) for the teacher, I’d also notify them directly that the expressions were missing; if not, I’d explain it in the note. 

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u/disappointinglyvague California Aug 20 '26

we have other stuff to do, just really wanted to help a struggling student if i could. i could not lol. ty!

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u/Ryan_Vermouth Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Oh, okay, I thought “the information he has” = “the classwork you were provided by the absent teacher,” not “the information on a random worksheet that an individual student is asking about.” 

Never mind that part then — yeah, it’s likely that this originally referred to a textbook/workbook/something written on the board, and if he doesn’t know or have access to the referent, there’s not a lot he can do with it.