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>"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.

Memorizing the exact formula of the Quadratic equation may not be necessary - knowing that the quadratic equation exists and what it is does is the useful part. Even more useful is to recognize a problem and realize the quadratic equation applies to it.

Trigonometry or calculus are better examples of this. Memorizing every formula and then promptly forgetting about them 5 minutes after passing the test is not useful but learning the concepts and the fundamentals and how they apply to solving a whole slew of problems is the useful part. Algebra is extremely abstract (especially if you are a school pupil - "I'll never use this in the real world") but understanding it unlocks a whole lot of higher level conceptual ways of thinking and approaching problem solving.

You'll have far better success using a calculator (or chat GPT or Wikipedia) if you know not just what to punch into it by the why as well.

More useful yet is knowing how to derive the quadratic equation as was in my curriculum (small public highschool in Canada).

> "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.

>"More math" isn't an end goal to anything aside from the 0.01% who will pursue math as a career and keep the wiki pages up to date for the rest of us.

I feel like that's the point of primary education. It's a sample board of various topics and subjects to help you figure out what you like. I sure as hell wouldn't be in my career if I wasn't forced to struggle on the quadratic formula for years on end. Meanwhile, I'm sure some bio/chem high schoolers could run circles around me for how much of that I retained. It depends on the student.

>So what the hell should kids be learning?

we'll certainly never come to a consensus, but I think the primary 4 subjects taught are a fine enough base. You should understand basic arithmetic and how to speak your country's native language. You should have some underlying basis of science and how to approach experimenting as well as an understanding of the history of your country and a general world history. so general K-8 education feels fine.

it's secondary education that has you really go out in the weeds. If I could choose classes there the way I could choose in college, I'm not sure if I would have given my self 4 years of english and history, nor bothered with further biology and chemistry. Hell, the 1 quarter of english and bio/chem I was forced to take in college felt like too much (I remember literally nothing about those classes). Things by high school become less strictly defined in my eyes.