You mentioned history: There I saw too little in detail and attention to causality to take the content seriously. Also the history courses spent far too much time on the really old stuff, including 2000+ years ago, and not nearly enough time after 1800. And for the old stuff, they neglected the roles of domestic animals, masonry, military technology, metals, open ocean sailing and trade, the longitude problem, coal, steel, and steam. For after 1900, eventually I learned that from TV, e.g., the series Victory at Sea.
So, I was effectively blocked from anything significant in non-fiction until math and physics in my last two years of college; there I was a double major in math and physics but at the last moment dropped physics as a major and was only a math major.
From grade 5 on, I very much wanted the math and science. Being force fed fictional literature for 14 years was a really big bummer -- I was torqued and still am.
During those bad 14 years, at one point I did push ahead: My last three years in college were in a relatively good school with, actually, a quite good math department. But, to save money, my freshman year in college was in a state school I could walk to. There they wouldn't let me take calculus but forced me to take a math course beneath what I'd already covered in high school. So, I got a respected calculus book, dug in, and learned freshman calculus on my own. Then, in my sophomore year in the better college, I started with their sophomore calculus, using the same text as Harvard, and did well. So, I taught myself freshman calculus and, actually, never took it or got course credit for it.
Bad high school? Not comparatively: It was by a wide margin the best public high school in the city and, really, better than the few, small private schools. MIT came recruiting, and the year before me three guys went to Princeton and ran against each other for President of the Freshman Class.
I see a problem: English, as essentially just fictional literature, was required and got pushed hard for 14 years with nothing else even comparable. I was and remain torqued.
Now, here on HN, fictional literature is very much not the source of "the books we talk about". Good.
That said, you seem to lay the blame for all that on having to take what I assume was more or less an English literature class throughout that period (though I doubt it was such in 1st grade). Yes, high school literature in particular can be biased toward writers I didn't like then and (mostly) don't like now. But I personally think there's a lot of value in appreciating great literature (as well as other fiction). I'm sorry you apparently prefer to only read programming books.
So would I. But much more is known about the years since 1800 than before year 1000, yet my most serious history courses spent so much time before year 0 they never made it to 1800 although they were supposed to.
Moreover, drawing from a Markov assumption, which commonly does hold over time, for understanding 1900, what the situation was in 1800 is important, but, given what that situation was in 1800, what the situation was, in addition, in year 1000 or 1000 BC is next to irrelevant.
Of course, what we really need to care about from history is what it can tell us about now and 10, 50, 100 years from now. For that, sure, can even just start in 1800 and lose very little from ignoring 1000 BC. Still, sure, I'd go along with a fast pass to year 1000, a little slower to year 1800, and then dig in.
The academic study of history seems to be more an infatuation with the past than a source of lessons for the future, or from just a movie, "a passion for antiquities."
> That said, you seem to lay the blame for all that on having to take what I assume was more or less an English literature class throughout that period (though I doubt it was such in 1st grade).
No, I was careful not to say "class" or "course". They taught English in grades 1-6, and there the reading was essentially all just fictional literature, and the writing assignments were all essentially just versions of story telling, but the actual separate courses in English didn't start until grade 7.
> But I personally think there's a lot of value in appreciating great literature (as well as other fiction).
If that stuff is to be required, then the claims and support for them should be made clear.
For appreciation, I'm a big fan of classical music. E.g., last night it was the von Karajan recording of the R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben. To me, passionate stuff. Highly meaningful. Still, very few people will get much out of that music. But, I do appreciate it, but just how and why are long stories. Net, I couldn't recommend that a music appreciation class with such music be required.
Similarly for a class in appreciation of great literature. STEM subjects? Sure.
> I'm sorry you apparently prefer to only read programming books.
Take a pass through either of, say, Jacques Neveu, Mathematical Foundations of the Calculus of Probability or David G. Luenberger, Optimization by Vector Space Methods I listed, which I have done, especially the first, and still claim that these are "programming books". Both have as prerequisites a solid undergraduate pure math background; the first is heavily about measure theory, especially the Radon-Nikodym theorem; both are heavily about functional analysis, e.g., Hilbert and Banach spaces; and the second is heavily about the Hahn-Banach theorem.
I take it that you like fictional literature. Well, I don't. And, whether I like it or not, since there is no common and very good case for the value other than just entertainment, I suggest that less of it be force fed.