why???

this is the question that my nine girls in algebra II are asking lately (well, at least some of them are). why do we do math? why does this matter to my life? but their question goes beyond math to school in general. why do i have to write papers? why do i have to go to school at all? these are valid questions and students today are discovering things that are wrong with the school system--that they do a bunch of theoretical things but not necessarily practical things that they will actually need to use in their life. it's a hard question to answer in general, including answering it about math specifically. i said something about how math trains your mind to think in different ways, while other subjects train you to think in other ways, so you can be ready for whatever thinking comes your way in life in the future. they (the people who were being frustrated and bothered by the "why?" question) didn't even want to talk about that though, so we ended the conversation. i think for some people i need a better way to respond than rational reasons why we do these things. i try to be as encouraging as possible in my classes and not say things that put down students or make them feel bad. i think i need to work on affirming more, and then when these why questions come up, offer to talk to individual students (or the whole class), if they are really open to discussing it. when students are frustrated is probably not the best time to have a discussion like that--at least that's why i gather from what happened today. so then how to diffuse frustration that a couple students are feeling and not have the bad feeling spread to the whole class, that is the whole question i don't have an answer to right now.