How is 6s squared and 12 going to help me find the surface area of the cube?

You don't seem to know how to present a problem correctly, so there is no answer.

I would guess that 's' is supposed to be the length of the side and "s squared" is the area of one face, so 6s^2 = total area, using Shift-6 for the power of 2. I have no idea how the '12' fits in here.