"Unnecessary"

This post might make Klari cry...but I gave fair warning. A little project I like to do in US Gov't class when learning about political "platforms" is to assign small groups of students to create presidential platforms, and they make a poster with a slogan and everything. They come up with some interesting things, and there's always the group that focuses on what they would change about the school, missing the "how would you change the country" big picture. And I am usually patient about lots of crazy ideas. But one group said, "We would get rid of all the unnecessary stuff they teach in school. We would only learn stuff we need for life. Like no more Math because there is no way that learning how to do an equation will be something I need in life." A simple equation? They can't do a simple equation? I couldn't silently listen, I had to ask, "So, when you want to buy a house, and you want to figure out what the APR is going to cost you, or the ameritization (which I don't really understand, but Werty was talking about it the other day, so I wanted to throw that in to show these kids there is more to Math out there than they know), what are you going to do?" "Whatever. We'll use a calculator." How do you use a calculator if you don't know how to make or solve an equation? Are they going to input random numbers into the calculator? And I remembered the awful fundraising we did two years ago, working BYU football games, and the students that pulled out their cell phones as a calculator every time they needed to add up someone's order because all we had was a cash box, no electronic registers, and how we quickly pulled those kids off the front counter and put them to work in the back making food instead...which was honestly chancey if they could do that right. How are these kids going to figure out a tip when they eat out? Are they going to think the credit card or utility companies are ripping them off because thy don't understand how to compute interest? Are they going to be taken advantage of? I guess it's all "unnecessary."