My son’s teacher last year tried to tell me that, at a private school no less, that I probably didn’t understand math well, which is why we were struggling with the homework.
I said any adult who finished high school should be able to help a fourth grader with math. And as a degreed engineer, and my husband with a masters’ in engineering, if two people who actually use algebra, geometry and calculus for work can’t understand two digit by two digit multiplication, the problem was their teaching method, not the concept.
We taught our son how to do standard multiplication the way people have done it for decades, and he got the right answer. She then counted it wrong for using the wrong method.
I pulled out a calculator and showed her that the answer was right, and counting it wrong for the method every adult in the building learned was petty if not evil.
The parent teacher council has since dumped common core and that teacher.
This year, the public school in our area has ditched most of common core. And the poor public fifth graders who have used it for years need remedial work to learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide at third grade levels.
This is why my husband and I - a pair of, as you put it, degreed engineers who do this for a living - are homeschooling our daughter. I get to choose the curriculum. I even picked something that isn't "the traditional way", but rather an Asian-influenced style -- but I made darn sure it made sense to me before we got it!
Forcing you to use a particular method rather than finding the right answer is, like you said, evil.