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Old 09-21-2008, 04:20 PM   #39
gothicusmaximus
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,687
Quote:
Originally Posted by JCC
Do you honestly think that people should be forced to learn trigonometry? Or Pythagoras' Theorem? How many office workers are going to need to know Iambic Pentameter?
As a matter of fact, I do believe that all people should know such rudimentary facets of all academic disciplines, to ensure this is to enrich and strengthen the culture as a whole. Sure, one should be more versed in the specific craft he chooses to pursue than he is in others, but you'd have him be cripplingly ignorant of anything beyond that realm?
Moreover, you realize that people do, in the course of their schooling, occasionally change their minds in regard to their future profession, right? If a student who likes only English at age 14 is allowed to simply ignore everything else, he'll have no foundation upon which to build an understanding of math should that subject come to intrigue him at any point in the subsequent 90 years of his life.
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