Do math students who are bound to be high school math teachers have to learn ring theory?

Question

I am just curious whether math students who bound to be high school math teachers have to learn ring theory. If so, why.

Answer 1

Because it gives them perspective, and practice with abstract thinking. It might also equip them to answer questions like "what is a number?" or "why is $3^0=1$?" that most cannot answer.

My experience is that most if not all of the math education students hate this, and they are convinced that they don't need it in their program. The result we see is that math is taught mostly as a calculation device, or as pointless notation, when the point of having math in school is to stimulate thinking and convey understanding.

And we are within a vicious circle where new students come to college with less and less math ability and knowledge, and these students in turn become teachers, and things get worse year after year.