math in life

It seems that every time I meet with some of my colleagues in the school and see some of the applications that they are bringing to their students in class, it makes me reflect on the math that I teach. I always hear students and parents talk about when am I going to use this. I look at some of the curriculum and wonder the same thing myself. It makes me think, what should we be teaching? Are there subjects that should be taught to students that would be more applicable to what they are going to see in their future? Should we focus more math on applications like home mortgages, credit card interest, taxes and other things that you might not learn in school? I need to figure out how math is going to affect these kids in their future if it does not include an engineering degree. I guess that my question becomes an interpretation of the students question: Why do I teach this?

In class homework

I have been using the internet to post the homework assignments for this semester. I have been trying to update the site early in the day. I have noticed that some of the students are beginning the homework in class while I am still going over the section. This happened last year and the students that were doing it were some of my higher achieving kids. This year I have students doing this in class and I looked up a previous grade and they have struggled in math. I am trying to figure out if it is better for me to keep the student involved in class or let the students struggle through it on there own and miss some of what we are doing in class. These students seem to be doing okay so far but what habits are they getting into that will affect their learning later on?