I found this statement in that article:

Quote
For more than 20 years national organizations and prominent leaders in mathematics education...have warned that our national rush to calculus is misguided and not even an appropriate path for many students.

Hmm. Honestly, I think that if colleges want to claim that their students are getting a real college education, they should ensure that everyone understands what differentiation and integration are. This would require a semester-long calculus course (AP in high school counts, IMO). Science and Engineering students have to take college-level English and other humanities courses. The vast majority won't analyze what motivated King Lear or Odysseus when they're programming in Scala or assessing flow cytometry results. So why do they have to take the humanities classes? Because they're considered to be an essential part of what it means to be "educated."

Given this, why should humanities students get a pass on calculus? Calculus is beautiful way of mathematical thinking that can change your philosophical perceptions about of mathematics and physics, and, by extension, the universe we inhabit. The idea that you don't have to study calculus (or algebra) because "you won't use it at work" is incredibly short-sighted. Calculus, algebra, and geometry teach a way of thinking as much as a way of calculating, just like great works of literature expose us to news ways of thought. When our educators push students away from mathematics, they cheat them and do them (and our society) a disservice.

Last edited by Val; 08/19/12 06:08 PM.