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People who take calculus in high school tend to be the more advanced students. This is not a course the typical student in the US takes until college. I think t

People who take calculus in high school tend to be the more advanced students. This is not a course the typical student in the US takes until college. I think those advanced students who do take calculus are still better served and reach a higher level of mathematical maturity by learning calculus than by statistics. Calculus also aids the student in the appreciation of physics. It is central to the understanding of many mathematical concepts. Calculus is a requisite for understanding where statistical distributions come from. How else do you make sense of probability distributive functions and cumulative distribution functions? or understand where those statistical tables come from? Statistics is already taught in high school at an elementary level. The topic is frequently taught repeatedly in the courses. Statistics should probably be taught more but not at the expense of calculus.

pimmen 7y ago
Sure, calculus can unlock more pure mathematical concepts than statistics. But so can graph theory, number theory, set theory and abstract algebra. The second point you raise, that calculus has so many applications in physics, is honestly the real reason calculus dominates high school mathematics post algebra classes. 50-60 years ago an engineer mostly worked with mechanical and electrical concepts, not anything in computer science. Today, we have highly trained engineers who work exclusively with other branches than analysis. Just because you are an advanced student does not mean that all the calculus served in high school will serve you better than any other mathematical branch. You don’t have to know that much calculus to grasp what a probability distribution is, or where the tables come from. Do you know what a limit is? Great, then we can explain a continuous distribution as soon as you grasp a discrete distribution. Areas are also something you probably can understand. Would it be cool to derive the tables by doing integrals? Sure. Do you need to in order to understand variance, significance, estimation of distributions, correlation and more? No. I would be willing to let those who are more interested choose calculus, but I would appropriate just as much resources to let people choose the other branches of mathematics too. If you can take integral calculus, but not combinatorics, that’s a problem in today’s society. Physics and chemistry are great, but we should not let them dictate the entire math curriculum, statistics and computer science are just as important and lucrative fields for advanced students to pursue. So, if we do have to let one mathematical branch dictate upper high school math education, let’s dethrone calculus and instead teach statistics. If I have to choose just one to give the same absurd levels of attention as calculus has been given, I think statistics will be by far the most useful to everyone, whether you’re a medical doctor, lawyer, engineer or any other highly skilled professional, statistics will probably serve you best. If for no other reason than to ask informed questions rather than just smile and nod while I explain the variance of an important business metric.

pimmen 7y ago

Sure, calculus can unlock more pure mathematical concepts than statistics. But so can graph theory, number theory, set theory and abstract algebra. The second point you raise, that calculus has so many applications in physics, is honestly the real reason calculus dominates high school mathematics post algebra classes. 50-60 years ago an engineer mostly worked with mechanical and electrical concepts, not anything in computer science. Today, we have highly trained engineers who work exclusively with other branches than analysis. Just because you are an advanced student does not mean that all the calculus served in high school will serve you better than any other mathematical branch. You don’t have to know that much calculus to grasp what a probability distribution is, or where the tables come from. Do you know what a limit is? Great, then we can explain a continuous distribution as soon as you grasp a discrete distribution. Areas are also something you probably can understand. Would it be cool to derive the tables by doing integrals? Sure. Do you need to in order to understand variance, significance, estimation of distributions, correlation and more? No. I would be willing to let those who are more interested choose calculus, but I would appropriate just as much resources to let people choose the other branches of mathematics too. If you can take integral calculus, but not combinatorics, that’s a problem in today’s society. Physics and chemistry are great, but we should not let them dictate the entire math curriculum, statistics and computer science are just as important and lucrative fields for advanced students to pursue. So, if we do have to let one mathematical branch dictate upper high school math education, let’s dethrone calculus and instead teach statistics. If I have to choose just one to give the same absurd levels of attention as calculus has been given, I think statistics will be by far the most useful to everyone, whether you’re a medical doctor, lawyer, engineer or any other highly skilled professional, statistics will probably serve you best. If for no other reason than to ask informed questions rather than just smile and nod while I explain the variance of an important business metric.