The more I look at this topic, the more I'm thinking -- if the goal is "real world math" (which it perhaps shouldn't ALWAYS be, but let's go with it) it feels l

The more I look at this topic, the more I'm thinking -- if the goal is "real world math" (which it perhaps shouldn't ALWAYS be, but let's go with it) it feels like the solution is probably "get the kids in front of Excel (or Calc/Sheets) as soon as possible." A big wide open "environment" to get things done in the same way that people in the real world do. Incidentally, I'm also thinking that this might also apply to "programming?"