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I would agree with you, but I think there is something to be said for the kind of mental dexterity it takes to do higher-level thinking while having a detailed view of what you are trying to accomplish. I would not want to give up all lower level cognition though. To each his own I guess.

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I think understanding the concept of the lower level stuff without having to have rote memorization is important.

As an example, high school kids learn calculus via rote memorization (at least this is how we learned it). We learned what the derivative of x^2 was, etc. but not necessarily what the derivative is. The majority of testing doesn't really focus on the concept, and it should.

As I got into college I understood the concepts behind mathematical thought and everything started making sense. So I guess I'm in the "less rote memorization" camp.

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