Powerful, solid summation of one of the big problems with education, we have an outdated list of predetermined things for kids to learn, that, aside from the arguable inaccuracy or irrelevance of some of them, are woefully obsolete.
Hamming then goes on to say that "...the difficulty of knowing the future does not absolve the teacher from seriously trying to help the student be ready for it when it comes.", and it's an example of truly caring about the effect you have on the life of a student, but it's also an indictment of education and educators at the time.
Very interesting that he chose 2020. 44 years into the future shows the range of his vision, the deeply altruistic desire, to think that far ahead in late is an uncomfortable thought- the continuation of the world after one's expiration- the deep fear of being forgotten, becoming irrelevant, nameless in the face of no one saying yours ever a gain.
Your best bet is to become one of the Degree Immortal's.
See "...great achievements are gifts of knowledge to humanity." section of Foreword.
Of course, if you deliver humanity degree immortality, you'll certainly have reserved a place on the Degree Immortal's.
Okay, now we're getting into the good shit.
This is honestly too heavy for me to expound on now, I have to sit back and let this digest, and juxtapose it with different learning experiences of mine, to see whether or not I disagree. It sounds quite solid, and I think I'll end up agreeing with it, but even if I don't, it's still a very powerful binary heuristic. They do seem rather uncombinable- I can't ask you what when and why how to do a thing, or how to what when and why to do a thing. It's nonsense. The what and the how are the most intimately linked, but the when and the why are vast beasts whose domain compromises things entirely unrelated to the how. How to do CPR has nothing to do with why the person in front of you isn't breathing.
....aaaaand that's the sound of me agreeing.