Like most here I always liked math and science. Nonetheless, growing up, I never felt like I was given a meaningful answer on &quot;why do I need to learn math?&quot; I think we can do better with programming.<p>The anecdote the OP gives, &quot;learn coding so your really boring job [no offense to OP] will be less painful&quot; is useful. Even better for high-school kids: &quot;learn coding so you can Instagram all day at your job while your program works for you.&quot; I&#x27;m not condoning this, and obviously it&#x27;s better to actually inspire true curiosity (extremely hard), but I think this kind of message would work for a lot of kids.