Comment by 725686
3 hours ago
You never know if learning calculus will make you discover new things that you might like to pursue. Also, you never know if you will need it or not apriori. By that logic, you shouldn't learn anything until you need it, wich I think would be a disaster.
> You never know if learning calculus will make you discover new things that you might like to pursue.
Just as you will never know what you might have discovered if you used the time you spent learning calculus learning something else instead, of course. There is no magic formula to life.
> you shouldn't learn anything until you need it
Impossible. Simply existing as a functioning human means you are going to be constantly learning something. Not everything you learn will be useful, but that's also true of calculus. Not everyone finds it useful in the end either. You never know what will end up being useful, but you also can't learn everything.
The great thing about the curious mind is that you tend to be naturally drawn towards the things that are most useful for you. Those born most likely to do something with calculus already voluntarily choose to learn about it. You don't have to make them. The stereotypical druggy who has no interest in anything but getting high, who suddenly has his life turned around because you force him to learn calculus, is little more than Hollywood fantasy.
This framing doesn't fit my experience. Most kids, left to their own devices, would not learn arithmetic.
I know few adults that were forced to learn something as kids that regret learning it. Conversely I know tons of adults that, as a kid talked their parents out of being forced to learn something and as an adult seriously regret it.
> Most kids, left to their own devices, would not learn arithmetic.
Unlikely. Too many things in life depend on arithmetic. Most people will learn things when they must.
What is more likely is that kids won't learn arithmetic before they need it and therefore may theoretically miss out on the aforementioned discoveries that are overlooked when one doesn't already have a foundation in arithmetic. However, most people never have such discoveries anyway. Those who do tend to be the type that would learn something like arithmetic just for fun.
> I know few adults that were forced to learn something as kids that regret learning it.
As a once child, if I didn't want to learn something, I didn't. Forcing someone to sit in a classroom where a subject is being taught, for example, is not the same as actually learning the material. So this is an obvious truism. Those who didn't want to learn something never did.