Why did I have to memorize all that shit if there's a simple way to derive the formula? Jesus.
"So, you still didn't have derivation in math class?"
We explained, that we will have it in the final month of the school year, if we are lucky. Her reaction was:
"But we kinda need it already. But I should be able to teach you that in 20 minutes."
And she did. And then she spent the rest of the lesson going through some old equations that she might have spent hours explaining: "Remember how long it took us to get to i.e: equation relating gass pressure and temperature? We always used that finicky helper variable. I think I even named it delta. In reality, you just derive this base form, and do a simple substitution."
Ok, my memory is a bit hazy. But she went on and on, through stuff we have been ehm, deriving without calculus for hours, that took with calculus around 3-4 steps.
The one thing I really wished I'd have learned more of, younger, is stats. Knowing how basic probability works would have been fantastic - it took a lot of poker theory to really understand it in my bones.
In high school, if you can convince a single person that they need to know calculus, more power to you. 99% of people don't and it's literally a waste of time. Teach people finance though...suddenly we have math that people will know is important.