I was not bad at math in school until I attempted Pre-Cal and to my humiliation discovered it was so hard that I had to drop a Track to get an A. I felt at the time, that I was going in the dumb kids class to be in Track 3. I have already discussed how useless my high school math has been. Now if my child had a Marie Curie tendency I would move in that direction with her (likewise for the boys), but to teach to the norm in the New Youth Culture ....what about:
Business Math. The class that was considered a "joke" math class in highschool.
I know intimately two women who flunked Math in high school but currently
run their own businesses!!!
That being said, when my husband was getting his business off the ground, he ran amuck with the finances...he's the creative, disorganized big picture sort that can't be bothered with details. So he asked me to do Quicken for him. I really tried to figure it out, and after entering forms for a year or so, Chad hired an accountant. ;-P
But what if I would have taken a Quicken class in highschool? What if my friends would have taken a Quicken class? Not only would we be able to
rock our personal finances and support our husband's businesses, but we would have been equipped to manage our own entrepreneurial affairs.
***A related note: One of Chad's ideas for our kids for high school is to give them their own website and let them maintain it and make their "allowance" from it. The more time they invest, the greater the income. Later, if they are disinterested, they can sell the whole business and use the money for whatever direction they go. Math could be taught naturally in this context and applied to the business they were running. Their income would be a natural motivation to learn, as well.
This is a great book to get from the library before going to the Museum of Science and Industry's new "Numbers in Nature" exhibit. I was amazed at this book because I am one of those non-Math types who love to find an inspiring historical personal divine connection in Mathematics. This was what was missing from my public school education. So anyhoo--you can read Blockhead and discover how the great designer, the God of Heaven and Earth has left his (mathematical) fingerprint on all nature. The exhibit really shows the breadth of it...how the spiral (Fibonacci's sequence) and the golden rectangle can be found in the solar system, in humans and in plants and animals... its so amazing to see art, math, and design all coming together and revealing the glory of God. I wish they would have had worship music at MSI, but I was praising!! 
Fibonacci sequence
