I imagine you've heard a student ask, "When am I ever going to use this in life?" in a math class. Maybe you nodded in agreement... maybe the question came from your own mouth... or maybe this sentiment still echoes in your mind in the form of nightmares about your days in school. It's a fair question though, isn't it? Yet educators often react quite viscerally to it.
Cartoon owls are always so smart...
Having been asked "When in life will I ever use this?" myself, I know that the question is more often a display of a defeatist attitude than that of true curiosity. I sometimes imagine climbers training in the gym asking a similar question. "Why do I have to hangboard -- it's boring!" or "When will I ever need to campus from rung 1 to 3 to 5, and then back down?" or "When will I ever have to do a sit-up?" When put into a slightly different context, the question "when will I ever use this in life?" seems absurd on many levels.
So what's the difference between the math student and the training climber in regards to this question? Choosing to be there is the first big distinction. While climbers are training to improve at their chosen sport, most students probably don't take full ownership of their choice to become educated by attending high school or college. Unfortunately, an education is more often about meeting social expectation than obtaining self-fulfillment. Another distinction is respect. We've all learned about climbing from a super strong friend or our favorite professional climber's blog. But most folks don't have a math sensei. In fact, many of our friends and parents would probably say that they don't like math. And to be honest, not too many math teachers are walking around with cool points falling out of their pockets.
I think that he should be able to handle this lecture without referencing his book...
There's usually a good honest answer to the question of why we learn the math that we learn in school. Most math classes are a balancing act. For example, I'd say a typical College Algebra (or algebra 2) class is about 10% real world application, 65% preparation for Calculus, 20% critical thinking, and 5% art.
But the question "when in life..." misses the most obvious point. It's important to realize that what is happening to us right now is, in fact, life. Life is not something we have to wait on graduation to begin. We don't need to have a new job, a new car, or a new relationship to start living.
And we have a lot of control over our lives! If you choose a life that puts you into a math class, then at the very least you're expected to prove to your future college/employer that you are capable of learning complex concepts. So...
Q: When in life am I ever going to have to use this?
A: This is your life. So right now.