What grinds me the most is that we’re sending kids out into the world who don’t know how to balance a checkbook, who don’t know how to apply for a loan, don’t even know how to properly fill out a job application, but because they know the quadratic formula we consider them prepared for the world?

With that said, I’ll admit even I can see how looking at the equation x – 3 = 19 and knowing x = 22 can be useful. I’ll even say knowing x = 7 and y = 8 in a problem like 9x – 6y = 15 can be helpful. But seriously, do we all need to know how to simplify (x – 3)(x – 3i)??

And the joke is, no one can continue their education unless they do. A student living in California cannot get into a four-year college unless they pass Algebra 2 in high school. A future psychologist can’t become a psychologist, a future lawyer can’t become a lawyer, and I can’t become a journalist unless each of us has a basic understanding of engineering.

Of course, engineers and scientists use this shit all the time, and I applaud them! But they don’t take years of theater arts appreciation courses, because a scientist or an engineer doesn’t need to know that The Phantom of the Opera was the longest-running Broadway musical of all time. Get my point?

The board of education should sit down with universities and high schools alike and create options for students. Let us take business classes that substitute all the same credits as algebra. I guarantee a semester of learning how to start a small business would benefit people much more than knowing: ax^2 + bx + c = 0

Although most boys figure out how to bring themselves to orgasm by age thirteen, half of girls do not have their first orgasms until their late teens, twenties, or beyond. Teenage girls widely agree that they get the message loud and clear that masturbation is something boys do, but girls do not, cannot, or should not. The cultural focus on intercourse tells young women to expect they will begin to experience sexual pleasure once they have sex with a man (whether or not they are even interested in sex with men). Nearly all teen boys, on the other hand, experience sexual pleasure long before they get their hands—or other body parts—into a partner’s pants. Despite the massive advances in women’s equality, young women’s sexuality is stuck in a surprising paradox. Young women are sold provocative clothes but are not taught where to find their own clitoris. Many girls give their boyfriends oral sex, but are too uncomfortable with their own bodies to allow the guys to return the favor. It is still a radical act to say that women need and deserve access to information about their own sexual pleasure—not just about the risks and negative consequences of sex.