"Math is taught Completely Wrong in America!!! You see, we started Standardized Testing decades ago in an attempt to make our failing math programs better. The result was a litany of unintended consequences.

In short, good teachers became pressured to teach the material on the test over actual math. Their promotions were tied to the performance of their students. They even at times faced losing their jobs. Schools funding became tied to these tests and the pressures from school administrations across the country forced teachers to "Teach to the Test". Instead of learning Real Math, students across the country were forced to memorize what they needed to pass the test.

Why is this bad? Because Mathematics is unique among the subjects we teach in school. Everything you learn at any given point in your math career...is needed to succeed in the future. Math builds upon itself and if there are even just a few holes in your mathematical foundation, the whole thing will eventually crumble. You see the better you master Arithmetic, the easier Pre Algebra is when you take it. The more you understand Pre Algebra the easier Algebra and Geometry become. And so it goes from Algebra/Geometry to Precalculus: Precalculus to Calculus and so on and so forth.

As a result of the testing, we have had decades (generations even) of teaching the minimum necessary to pass that test in order to optimize the results. And at each iteration, something is left behind. Year after year students are left with an ever increasing gap in the foundations necessary to survive the next math class. We teach them to memorize an unconquerable mountain of formulas and equations and the vast majority of students simply give up. They take what they need to take to graduate and never look back. They end up thinking that they hate math. But they really don't. I've seen it. What they really hate is this nonsense that has been forced upon us. This is NOT Mathematics!

So what is Mathematics? Math is problem solving and critical thinkin" less...