Schools should be teaching about real-life related things more, and remove a lot of their subjects

Concerning Pro"s opening statement: Pro argues that "school does not prepare you for real life." He then lists a series of philosophical lessons about life. Some of them no doubt would be taught in school, if not specifically in a classroom. To use his first example, I personally cannot imagine how anyone could survive high school without learning that life is not fair. To go to high school is to be immersed in that truth. Beyond this, much of what Pro wants students to learn could not be taught in a classroom. Certainly a teacher could stand up and say, "Life is not like TV. Reality is different from fiction." That, of course, is true. But a 16-year-old who does not yet know that life is not like fiction will not likely believe because a teacher says so. While many of the lesson Pro wants students to learn are true, they are truths that some people must figure out for themselves and cannot be taught by others. Overall, it seems that what Pro wants is a philosophy class in high school. A class that studies the idea of knowledge, truth, dignity, right living, and the nature of life. On that I agree! A required (or at least elective) philosophy class should be a part of any quality high school curriculum. But we are talking about one class which would cover every lesson Pro has talked about and more. Cutting several other classes to make room for this one class is not reasonably justified. Why we should keep calculus: While we are debating a variety of subjects that could be kept or cut, I will focus on calculus because it is the only one Pro brought up by name. However, many of the concepts I mention here could easily be applied to a variety of other topics. The average person will not use calculus in life on a regular basis. That much is true. But that does not mean calculus is without value. One we get past "reading, writing, and arithmetic," the goal of education is to teach a person how to think. Education teaches students that there are different are different ways to think, different ways to approach problems in life, different ways to understand the world. This goes beyond the simple statement of "there are different ways to think." To gain a meaningful understanding of different ways to think students need to put different styles of thought into practice. Calculus, like many of the classes Pro would probably like to cut, introduces students to a new method of thinking. Calculus teaches students to think numerically.[1] The value of calculus is not in knowing calculus, but in understanding how to think in a new way. Calculus is the study of mathematically defined change [2]. Understanding calculus helps people analyze and understand change in all areas of life. Even if students never uses calculus for the rest of their lives, learning to think the style of calculus is invaluable. The understanding of mathematical change affects nearly every area of life. Of course engineers uses calculous in design work. But the concept of change goes beyond that. Artists and those who enjoy art understand how art expresses change, and calculus bring a new dimension to that change. Those who think philosophically view the nature of free will and determinism through the lenses of change that we gain from calculus.[3] There are other advantages to learning calculus that have nothing to do with calculus itself. Learning calculus teaches students how to study, work hard, and understand difficult material. One of the big advantages to calculus is that it is difficult to learn. Undertaking and completing the task of learning calculus, whether you want to or not, is itself a worthwhile lesson. The goal of learning calculus is not simply to know calculus. It is to know how to think. To look at the world without calculus is to, as Sherlock Holmes accused Watson of doing, see but not observe. Calculus helps us to observe at least a little bit more. [1] http://othersideofscience.com... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.understandingcalculus.com...