> Everybody needs to understand formal symbolic systems.
Everybody does not need to understand this and I dare (with fingers crossed) say a good percentage of those on HN don't either. There needs to be rationalization within the educational system for what is taught, with relevance to education for the sake of knowledge and for how material can be used for future employment prospects & general life skills. That may play to the lowest common denominator or the student mean, but that's largely and unfortunately what public education has become over the past fifty years.
Everybody does not need to understand this and I dare (with fingers crossed) say a good percentage of those on HN don't either. There needs to be rationalization within the educational system for what is taught, with relevance to education for the sake of knowledge and for how material can be used for future employment prospects & general life skills. That may play to the lowest common denominator or the student mean, but that's largely and unfortunately what public education has become over the past fifty years.