Comment by fhe
7 hours ago
i hope i don't get downvoted for this, but billions of people function just fine without the most rudimentary understanding of calculus. while i love maths, i am sympathetic to the view that it's not an essential life skill, and might even be less so in the future.
School shouldn't be teaching essential life skills. It should inspire and enable young people to go on to achieve great things -- at least some of them. How will we ever get another Newton, Einstein, von Neumann, Noether, etc. if we don't teach all young kids what is possible with math? Calculus arguably transformed our society and is a great showcase of the power of math. It can shape the way we think about things, because this level of precision is rarely needed when thinking about other disciplines.