Sure, some people need it, I was just responding to:
> I'm still appalled at how people can manage to gather the courage to utter they don't need math.
When... well, the vast majority of people really don't. They promptly forget almost everything back to about 6th grade math, shortly after finishing formal education, because they truly never need it, so that knowledge and those skills quickly rust.
If these people in-fact could make great use of it, such that it's "appalling" that they don't think they need it, then that's probably what school should focus on teaching, at least for non-math-majors. Laser-focus on application in everyday life. Especially in k-12. If it's actually useful and people are being forced to spend hundreds to thousands of hours learning junior high, high school, and college math, but then losing most of it because they never see any use for it, that's a tremendous failing of curriculum that should be addressed as directly as possible. If such a program wouldn't succeed because it's actually true that most people don't really need most of that math for anything, then we ought not be "appalled" at their correctly assessing that truth.
I see what youre saying. I don't think it's a failure of the curriculum to teach people things when they are young they don't end up using. Certainly a 13 year old isn't going to know what their future career path/interests will be (some do, but most don't) and shouldn't let them shut doors down the road at such a young age. I think at this point high school has devolved to the point of just giving everyone the basic broad skills that they could feasibly succeed at any college major. The seniors that have already decided they just want to build houses all day can complain during math, we all heard it, "when will I ever use this", but the problem is the answer is not "never" and its not "always" its "we don't know, but you may need it, and closing those doors now will limit your future potential".
> I'm still appalled at how people can manage to gather the courage to utter they don't need math.
When... well, the vast majority of people really don't. They promptly forget almost everything back to about 6th grade math, shortly after finishing formal education, because they truly never need it, so that knowledge and those skills quickly rust.
If these people in-fact could make great use of it, such that it's "appalling" that they don't think they need it, then that's probably what school should focus on teaching, at least for non-math-majors. Laser-focus on application in everyday life. Especially in k-12. If it's actually useful and people are being forced to spend hundreds to thousands of hours learning junior high, high school, and college math, but then losing most of it because they never see any use for it, that's a tremendous failing of curriculum that should be addressed as directly as possible. If such a program wouldn't succeed because it's actually true that most people don't really need most of that math for anything, then we ought not be "appalled" at their correctly assessing that truth.