Math in school

A young man walked by the house yesterday and his head was kinda down. I asked him how he was doing in school He said he got a F in math. I asked him if I could show him something and he said yes. The first thing I should him was try show him now to think in Math terms. to get to the point I showed him using the 5 questions to learn to think. They do not use this type of approach in school. To get to the point - regardless of the problem just think - 2 and 2 equal right. The questions used in thinking would be to ask - what is the problem , write these questions and answer down. Where is it located - page 10, Why am I doing this - the teacher told me to do it, and answer all the questions. Then he showed the problems that he was doing did not understand - 2 x times say 6 equal 18. This is not quite the problem that he showed me. Lenrning the procedure would be ask the questions how to do it. It is easy for me the first step would be to divide both sides by 6. so that would equal -2x =18 divded by 6 or -2x =3. next step would be to divide both sides by 2 and that equation would be -x=3/2, and the final step would be divide both sides by neg 1, and the final answer would x=-3/2 but you has to think even when the problems is fairly simple and there are shortcuts but a person has ot learn to think mathematically to work math. I think this is true of any subject. I do not know if he took my advice the approach is fairly simple and it would teach any subject.