> How far Jamie has to walk to get 3 bags of milk is not execution
Fewer examples are that planted in reality, although you still encounter crossing trains and leaking bathtubs. But even if it's just about finding the reason of a geometric suite or calculating the derivative of some function, the teaching process is the same as in the Jamie example:
step 1: those are the Rules and Theorems.
step 2: IF $situation THEN apply $rule42
step 3: solved!
Basically this is about the same as someone telling you that when you encounter screws you need to use a screwdriver. Thus the whole teaching of basic mathematics currently is akin to learning to build all Ikea furniture directions by rote and expecting people to get something out of it that would propel them to carpenter level.
Math is not about driving screws with the screwdriver given to you, it's about understanding what a screwdriver is made of, why it is shaped this way, and building your own appropriate screwdriver should you encounter an unknown screw.
The current system is so hopelessly wrong that when I was faced with it my personal solution was to solve stuff in the quickest way possible so that I'm not bothered with such crap anymore. Incidentally to achieve this I taught myself to truly understand mathematics. The majority of others though could not be bothered and simply learned the rules by rote, because it was so complicated (and of course it is if you understand zilch about what you're doing). The irony is that the whole teaching process ended up this way because some people up above deemed mathematics too hard and "simplified" teaching. Then the whole thing got out of hand in a self-sustaining loop.
Fewer examples are that planted in reality, although you still encounter crossing trains and leaking bathtubs. But even if it's just about finding the reason of a geometric suite or calculating the derivative of some function, the teaching process is the same as in the Jamie example:
Basically this is about the same as someone telling you that when you encounter screws you need to use a screwdriver. Thus the whole teaching of basic mathematics currently is akin to learning to build all Ikea furniture directions by rote and expecting people to get something out of it that would propel them to carpenter level.Math is not about driving screws with the screwdriver given to you, it's about understanding what a screwdriver is made of, why it is shaped this way, and building your own appropriate screwdriver should you encounter an unknown screw.
The current system is so hopelessly wrong that when I was faced with it my personal solution was to solve stuff in the quickest way possible so that I'm not bothered with such crap anymore. Incidentally to achieve this I taught myself to truly understand mathematics. The majority of others though could not be bothered and simply learned the rules by rote, because it was so complicated (and of course it is if you understand zilch about what you're doing). The irony is that the whole teaching process ended up this way because some people up above deemed mathematics too hard and "simplified" teaching. Then the whole thing got out of hand in a self-sustaining loop.