> "But teacher, I'll always have a calculator". Damn right. A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt. Remembering the quadratic equation is literally useless know

> "But teacher, I'll always have a calculator". Damn right. A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt. Remembering the quadratic equation is literally useless knowledge to retain. Remembering the quadratic equation allowed you to make an educated argument against its usefulness, so it isn't "literally" useless (badum bum psh). While I agree that there is tons of room for improvement on how/what/when we teach students different subjects, I think we should be very cautious about offloading subjects to tools before students have a firm grasp of the material. In my opinion, one of the greatest benefits of deeply engaging with a variety of subjects is getting into the habit of asking "why". I think this is important because it encourages students to dig deeper. I can only speak for myself, but the times I have learned the most is by far when I took an interest and started asking how and why things work. Imo, it's okay that students engage with complex subjects that they will never use, if for no other reason than that it will provide ample opportunities for them to ask why. Perhaps somewhere along the way they will discover that they are in fact in the small minority who will pursue math as a career.