Prioritizing your objectives is better than grazing past them accidentally

A silly argument: The goal of this activity/institution is to achieve X. It doesn’t really achieve X, but it does achieve Y, which is even better! If achieving Y is more important, why on earth would you go about that by trying and failing to achieve X? You should directly focus on Y instead. School allegedly teaches geometry/history/etc. Sometimes people complain that these skills aren’t useful,…