I do think the education system has hurt education by mandating a set of things that every student needs to know, and is under-serving everything else. I'd comp

I do think the education system has hurt education by mandating a set of things that every student needs to know, and is under-serving everything else. I'd compare this to the outdated 'literary canon'. Calculus is fun, but I know many people who don't think so. Some that found out it was necessary and had to make it up later. You're never going to convince the kids that it is necessary now to study it as effectively as they might. Ironically I've not needed it anywhere near as much as I though now that autodiff tools exist. Why not allow them to study something else, then come back to it when it has proven necessary for them? There are other exercises for the mind.