From my perspective, K-12 taught me how to learn (or at least fake it for tests), a liberal arts education taught me how to think more critically, and my on the job training helped me figure out where I belong. However, I had to figure it out by myself with a lot of luck and good grace on the part of others.
I never use complicated formulas, I do not particularly enjoy math, and my husband is an accountant (which means I get a free pass in the math world). However- the concepts of problem solving do come in handy. Whether they are math related or other things- solving for "X" is a good capability to master. Do you need a full year of algebra (plus geometry, trig, and maybe even calculus) for that? No. Are there better real world applications to learn that skill? Yes, but how to approach that would be a deeper discussion. Ultimately, I took math because they told me to and because I needed it to go to college. I didn't know why I needed to go to college yet at that point, I just knew it was what came after high school. If he had any idea what he wanted to do professionally, you could bring it in that way... but he's probably too young and hasn't seen enough of the world yet to know what's out there.
Tangent: I wish that when schools or teachers or parents or whomever talked about potential career paths, there was a way to focus on how to identify each child's strengths and capitalize on them. That way they could also explore the lesser known fields/positions. The personality tests we took in school always had the same 50 or so professions: doctor, lawyer, accountant, actor, mechanic, etc.
As an example, I was the annoying child that always asked why. Why does this happen that way, why does it work like that, why does this word come before that one, why is this person shy and that one's a bully, how do they know when to turn the lights red/yellow/green... and so on. My strength? Pure, unfiltered curiosity about the world and people around me. If I had more of a mind for math (or perhaps if I had learned it in a different method), I could have been well suited to be an engineer. However, I somehow wound up being essentially a business owner of an application used by call center agents. My job is to ask why constantly. Why do you need this feature, why do you need the agent to enter this information, what are you going to do with the information collected, how will this impact the agent's overall experience, etc. It's a great fit. Did I ever hear about this type of role in school? No. Had I ever heard of Six Sigma (and the Five Whys
)? No. Is this the right profession for me, at least for now? Absolutely.
