An intuition for calculus is essential for being an informed citizen.
You can't be an informed citizen in todays' complex world if you do not understand the difference between linear and exponential growth and if you have no intuition how changes in the rate of change affect the total.
That being said I think maths is taught quite badly in the US.
There is no point learning the rules if you don't have an intuition or can at least prove WHY they are like this.
Yet the US focuses way too much on the "rules", and way to little on the intuition.
You can't be an informed citizen in todays' complex world if you do not understand the difference between linear and exponential growth and if you have no intuition how changes in the rate of change affect the total.
That being said I think maths is taught quite badly in the US.
There is no point learning the rules if you don't have an intuition or can at least prove WHY they are like this.
Yet the US focuses way too much on the "rules", and way to little on the intuition.