Lots of students are overwhelmed by subjects being piled on top of their backs throughout their academic period of growing up, year after year. Courses like math B, chemistry, Latin, and calculus don't pertain much to everyday life.. which is pretty much the main idea of high school—to prepare you for the world, with or without extended education?

In my honest opinion I don't have much of a problem with these amazingly complex courses 'offered' at high schools. They may not be the most useful knowledge if not entering an occupation involving them in the future (matter of choice to point out..), as they have other beneficial results besides from gaining the knowledge in the subject. I've always been taught to appreciate the unappreciated, and your bound to get something good out of it. My chemistry teacher always told me these kind of subjects enables students to think, read, and even write in more detailed complexity—something we all could use, as well as knowing how our own world that we live in is in existence at the very present moment.

What are your opinions on the matter?

This message was edited by dearest apollo on Jun 14 2008.

I suppose it depends on your perspective. If you're good at Maths, you will say that Maths helps students in their thought process or whatever, whereas if you're good at say, English Literature, you'll say studying literature is key in understanding society and also in training the brain to think analytically about things that it wouldn't have before.

I'm more of a literature kinda guy, so I find Maths pretty pointless

I agree with you Apollo, except on one thing. The you say the course like Calc or Chem that are offered in High School are amazingly complex, but in reality they are not. Students just need better study habits and they will realise that calculus is not as hard as it seems.

I think these possibly "overdone" high school courses present a good idea at what you're most motivated to do and what you aren't, if any.

I don't really mind, but I could really care less about what x is

I feel that it isn't necessary, but is in the best interest of the persons who are under the umbrella of such a balanced and powerful conversation.

<sub>The title so far equals 12a - 9.

I personally feel that while some equations might lead to easier shortcuts in life, some things such as calculus aren't really that necessary.</sub>

[]

12a - 9;
a = ¹²/₉;

a == 1.33;

So now we replace:

3[4(1.33)-7] + 12;

3(-1.67) + 12;

-5.1 + 12;

== 7.1;

quote a Dude

2) It is unsolvable; it needs to equal something. So far I got: 14a-9

Yeah, you're mistaking the - for =. And if you divide both sides by 12, the other side would be 9/12 rather than 12/9.

I know a lot of high schools offer vocational training now, so it's much more up to the student. And people don't learn things like Calculus so much for life as they do to get into college. It's not the best system if they don't plan on continued learning in that area, but I suppose it gauges out who is capable of a more advanced curriculum?

LOL.

The people who say Math (including Calculus), and Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) aren't ‘pertinent’ to everyday life probably don't know much about everyday life, to begin with.

I think by "real life" they mean a job that doesn't require a bachelor's often has no requirement of understanding most of the stuff in high school.