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Okay, how about this: every student should learn trigonometry and how to dance and how to cook and how double-entry bookkeeping works and how to speak several foreign languages, most (personally I think all or nearly all) students should learn calculus, and a large (much larger than now) percentage should learn how to operate a band saw. Calculus is just absolutely fundamental to so much of the technology that we use every day that students who do not learn calculus are at a serious disadvantage comprehending our built environment.


Calculus is not fundamental to the technology that we use every day. I work an extremely technically challenging job and I'm serious, I haven't used calculus or trigonometry since my last physics exam in undergrad. Am I happy I know them? Sure, because I like knowing things. Are they even remotely useful in my everyday life? Not a bit.

Please, by all means, demonstrate a place where a person who doesn't know calculus is at a disadvantage interacting with the technology of the world around us. Until then, I'm calling bullshit.




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