Re: Latin and other irrelevant topics

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On 26 Jan 2001, Florian Weimer wrote:
> tom_swiftjr@my-deja.com writes:
> 
> > > In England, from the age of 7-13 I spent 10 class hours a week
> > > learning Latin, and only 5 learning mathematics, when I
> > > was 10, I added 5 hours a week of Greek :-) That's the way
> > > things were done then.
> 
> > Perhaps that's merely a reflection of the state of advancement of
> > mathematics when you were a lad?
> 
> There's hardly any relationship between the advancement of mathematics
> and the math taught at school.

Sad but true. 

>  Many important things have been
> discovered during the last few decades, but I doubt that (e.g.) the
> classification of finite simple groups is relevant for school teaching

Here I think we disagree. I think that there is quite a bit of modern
mathematics that could be brought to the high school student and the 
undergraduate (even the ones who aren't majoring in mathematics) that 
is highly relevant. Non-standard analysis, differential forms (can be 
introduced with multivariable calculus), category theory (a high school 
level approach in the book by Lawvere and Schanuel, linear programming, 
really the list is pretty long.

Personally, I'd much rather spend time studying math than studying Latin; 
the latter seems a waste of time, like being forced to read Shakespeare. 
De gustibus non est disputandum. ;-)

-- Brian