Reforming Mathematics Education: Goal should be understanding prob. and stats, not calculus.

For the first time today I came across TED's website. I did not know what TED was beforehand. Here is a brief description from their website:

"TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design."

As a math teacher, I am always getting the question, "When are we ever going to use this stuff?" Sometimes it is not easy to answer, because oftentimes, they are not.  This short video below shows a speaker, mathematics professor Arthur Benjamin, give his two cents about the direction in which we SHOULD be headed in math education.  He says our math curriculum today is heavily based on arithmetic and algebra, and is it is all leading towards calculus.  He acknowledges the value of understanding calculus to a few particular fields, like "math, science, engineering, economics..", but thinks that it is silly that in k-12 education we focus on the end goal being calculus. He believes, and I agree, that instead of there being an emphasis on teaching math skills that lead to calculus, the focus should be on probability and statistics. This is the type of math can be helpful and relevant to everybody. Check it out! I find it inspiring!