>>>The statement was made in my discrete mathematics class, by the professor, Dr. Nancy Zumoff, Ph.D. So I'm strictly echoing her opinion. She's still at Kennesaw: http://science.kennesaw.edu/people/nzumoff.html.
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>>mmm... I browsed her site. I like her approach. Get the kids learning Calc and applying it to real world problems at the same time. BTW, she looks awful young for being your prof 15 years ago? Is she a child prodigy?
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>Let's see...I took the class in the fall of 1986, so yep, 15 years ago.
>
>I don't know if she's a child prodigy or not. She was (and I'm sure still is) an extremely nice (not to mention brillant) person. I had more trouble in her class than in any of the others I took. My problem was that part of the course involved proving mathematical theorems. That's a blind spot for me. I'm pretty good in all other areas. She was very supportive and helpful. I was 38 at the time and wanted very badly to get nothing but A's in all my courses. Didn't work out. I got a B in her's, and probably wouldn't have done that well if not for her help.

Ouch! Theorem proofs are the hardest keddle of fish to fry in mathematics!
Most folks learn math the way they learned their times tables - memorization. Few teachers, never mind the kids, understand math theory to the point that they could even explain why 1+1 = 2. Betrand Russel took 800 pages to prove that 1+1=2, starting from basic assumptions, os it's easy to see why most folks aren't interested in it. If kids don't get a sound understanding of the delta-epsilon theory of the difference in calculus they aren't going far. By the way, there was an excellent two volume paperback comic book on that topic, by "Professer MC^2", or something like that... I'm having a senior moment and my brain's binary index barfed.
JLK