but isn't that the case with all instruction, not just maths? As a counterpoint to your example, I, too, learnt the basics of electronics when I was young - Oh

but isn't that the case with all instruction, not just maths? As a counterpoint to your example, I, too, learnt the basics of electronics when I was young - Ohm' laws, Kirchhoff's laws, etc. At the time I found it extremely uninteresting, and I certainly didn't apply it to my everyday life and still mostly don't. In phys ed. I had to play handball a lot. I never played handball as an adult. Running around a courtyard for 20 minutes? I don't do that, ever -- heck, why don't we teach kids to run behind a bus to catch it, or in a crowded airport to catch a connection? Now that would be usable skills... History, geography, literature (how often do you find yourself finding all the metaphors in a poem?), most of what we learn at school is not "used", nor is it instructed in relation to another skill or problem. And yet, when the issue comes up, it's always maths that is under scrutiny. There is a lot to review in the way we educate children, all the way to university. Not everything we teach has to be for utilitarian purpose, and yet we need to find a way to interest the kids into it, which we largely fail, in maths in particular, but in other disciplines too. Some of it is about helping them relate it to their every day lives, and some of it to expand their horizon. It's not easy, we don't do it well, and most suggestions I've seen are mostly cosmetic or superficial, and I'm not smart enough to have come up with anything clever myself either, sadly.