Calculus is entry level math for all the hard sciences, engineering, and finance. It's how to think about how things change over time. Understanding what integrals and derivatives look like, especially as graphs, is very practical knowledge. Being able to think about compound interest and acceleration under gravity as driven by the same rules gives an understanding of what's happening underneath.

Whether the infinite-series summation limits are worth knowing is questionable, though. That's more of historical interest.

(But then, I once did a game physics engine and have a patent in that area. I spent a lot of time in the hell which is integration of stiff systems of nonlinear differential equations. Turned out that was the wrong way to approach the problem. Works, but there are better approaches.)

The one-dimensional mentality of anti-intellectualism is absurd. I have heard parents outside of our school but in my community talk down French Immersion programs (versus English schooling) saying that people put their children in for the wrong reasons. I don’t know what the explicit reasons were in this case, but I am assuming that the other parent means academic overachievement.

Learning calculus or French can be beneficial, especially when the glass ceiling in certain workplaces is whether or not you’re bilingual. However, the point that’s getting missed is the metaexperience that consciously or subconsciously shapes the way the child interacts with the world later on.

i mean even basic differentiation is useful for optimization problems.