Look up the Tom Lehrer song with that name. I'm a mathematician who followed a long and nonstandard path into the field and I agree with 100% of what you've said. In my experience, it's "cool" to be bad at math -- typified by that Tom Lehrer bit

I believe it was an idea that had some popularity in the 60's and 70's where they tried to start math education by teaching students foundational concepts like sets rather than starting them with calculational methods (i.e. arithmetic).

common core math; btw if you didn't understand that reference i believe you are either not US based or lying