What "Is" Is

What “Is” Is

Students often think the equal sign means, “Write the answer next.”

That makes sense when most of the problems they have seen look like this:

4+5=___

They add the numbers, write 9 after the equal sign, and move on. After enough practice, the equal sign starts to feel like a direction instead of part of the mathematics.

Then algebra changes the format.

We use the word "is" all the time to connect an idea with something that is true about it. The temperature is 72 degrees. The time is three o’clock. The total is twenty dollars. In each statement, the word "is" connects two descriptions of the same value. In mathematical language, the temperature equals 72 degrees. The total equals twenty dollars.

That same meaning carries into algebra. A student sees:

9=4+5

They may hesitate because the answer seems to be on the wrong side. Nothing is wrong with the equation, though. The expression on the left has a value of 9, and the expression on the right also has a value of 9. The equal sign tells us those values are the same.

The word "is" works the same way in many algebra statements. “Three times a number plus two is fourteen” becomes: 3x+2 = 14.

The equal sign holds the two sides together. When students solve the equation, each step has to keep that relationship true.

This is why I want students to stop thinking of the equal sign as the place where the answer goes. That small misunderstanding can follow them into solving equations and make every new format feel harder than it should.

Sometimes success in algebra begins with slowing down long enough to understand a symbol students have already been using for years.

Before they solve for (x), they need to know what "is" is.