Is it time to kill calculus?
salon.com
salon.com
Even computer programmers should know calculus, or at least trig. Sure, you can write some software without it, but you will be very limited without solid math.
Image processing, FFTs, machine learning will be beyond you without Calculus. Understanding the foundations will be unreachable.
What an ugly little straw-man.
The idea that calculus has no practical purpose is ridiculous.
It's as if high schools taught "programming languages" by telling students the definition of variables, constants, and functions – and then left it at that, with no further elaboration and no actual exposure to programming.
I have a math degree and believe there is lots of value in teaching mathematics to the general public. But I've long been convinced that high school-level calculus is a tremendous waste of time. It's a random concept from advanced mathematics, dumbed down, robbed of its rigorous underpinnings, and placed in the school curriculum for largely historical reasons. Replacing calculus with basics of mathematical proofwriting would be far more beneficial.
Right now we teach proofwriting in the context of a geometry class. It's a good thing that students learn to understand the basic concept of proofs, but it seems odd that we're literally re-using the curriculum from ancient Greece. I'd love to see it replaced with a class designed from the ground up for proofs as they are actually done today.
Students should absolutely keep learning mathematics, as much as they can handle, but the entire curriculum (especially after basic algebra) could use reconsideration. Calculus is still crucial on a track for mathematicians and scientists, but most students don't need it and their time would be better spent elsewhere.
I've used all the prep to calculus courses in some way. Calculus, never... It was a waste of time.