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globular-toasttoday at 8:47 AM0 repliesview on HN

They shouldn't teach calculus like they taught it to me and my peers. Basically we just one day started "differentiating" equations. We learnt a completely mechanical process. Like how to chop an onion, except it doesn't actually feed you or taste delicious.

It took me a while to realise the point. It's all about rates of change. They should start with that. No need to bother with the maths, just look at graphs and be like "that's a steeper slope than that", and, ooh, that one's sloping in the opposite direction. This is a fundamental intuition that's so useful to have. Most people don't understand that braking is acceleration. They just don't have the mental model that lets them see fuel burn and braking as opposite things. The sooner this intuition is there the better. Then teach the maths.