Steelmanning "There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning."
Correct understanding and reasoning leads to correct answers. I want my airplane engineers to understand the concepts and reason through them and not have a shallow understanding of memorized solutions.
So do I, and I had some disrespect for the engineers who relied on memorization, but memorization is the first step towards understanding.
For example, if you want to play guitar like Van Halen, you gotta start by memorizing the finger positions.
I disagree that it is always the first step towards understanding. It is for some people but it is not the only route. At the end of the day some memorization is needed in most disciplines not just math.
> "There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning."
Approximate rewording to what should/can be done rather what should't be done ~"focus first on understand concepts and reasoning, then getting the correct answer"
Teaching 5 different routes to a classroom means focus is lost and little progress is made.
Besides, monkey-see monkey-do is an innate skill of humans, and it works. Especially with children, who have a very undeveloped ability to reason. Reason comes later.
Learning starting from basic principles is introduced in high school, but is foundational at the university level. By then the students can understand it.
> Approximate rewording to what should/can be done rather what should't be done ~"focus first on understand concepts and reasoning, then getting the correct answer"
How about my rewording here does that address your main concerns from the quoted approach?