why study calculus?

[aposiopetic]

The intarweb is less than helpful on this subject. The best arguments I can find are ones I've already thought of, which aren't terribly convincing to me (hence consulting the informatio-sphere). Any thoughts

Comments

[big_bad_al]

It's a tricky issue, now that I think about it. Here are some thoughts, though:

Reasons for studying calculus:

• More practical examples: calculus (and in particular differential equations) is used when determining drug doses and methods of drug delivery (pills, IVs, etc). It's used in hormone regulation. It's used in disease modeling, both in how the disease spreads through a population and how the disease works within a single organism (my clinic project was to model tumor growth, and the whole thing was governed by DEs). It's used in the design of prosthetics, as well as estimating populations (for instance, to make sure the deer in the local forest stay at a healthy size). Admittedly, however, these are tangential to veterinary medicine itself.
• If she wants to be a vet, and vet schools encourage calculus, it seems like it would be a way to strengthen her college applications. Granted, this is a long-term goal and not something every 8th grader will find convincing, but it's still a reason.
• I suspect that in the past she's wanted to be something besides a vet (astronaut, paleontologist, and ballerina are some standard choices). She's likely to change her mind again in the future. She's likely to pick something else sciencey, and it's likely to require calc. Again, maybe not convincing to an 8th grader, but it's a thought.
• Math is a great way to build critical thinking skills, which are needed in every part of life. Sure, you can develop these without math itself (join the debate team, learn to program a computer, etc), but math is one of the ways you can do this during school.

Reasons for not studying calculus:

• If she doesn't like math, pushing her to do more math will only make her like it less. and if she can get through life and by happy and become a veterinarian without taking calculus, who are we to decree that she should take it?
• I know nothing about this girl's school, but it's probably a huge part of her life. Is there something unusual about the calc courses at the school? Do the people who take calc get ridiculed and cast out of their social circles? Is the teacher one of those soul-crushing types who only teaches to the standardized test instead of the underlying principles? I don't know if these are problems, but it's worth checking out before forcing someone like this into a math course. In my experience, there tends to be a high correlation between things at which a person excels and things they enjoy, and I wonder if she enjoys math itself but is hampered by some outside effect like this.

[aposiopetic]

Thanks! About the school - she will go to the same HS that I went to, which has the IB (International Baccalaureate) program. There is only a slight stigma about IB and higher level courses, as you get labeled as "one of the IB kids", and for the most part that's OK. Also, there are plenty of IB kids, who migrate to this school to take the program, so IB has its own social circle of like-minded people (which is GREAT, IMO).