If the problem is "add 450 to 134 using drawings; show your work" and you line them up and add them to get 584, you get it wrong. You must draw the items and then count them one at a time. Yes, they did learn the proper way, but they are also taught this primitive way and a couple of others (apparently just to confuse them with multiple methods) and they force them to do it the dumb ways on a test or they get scored wrong regardless of the answer the get. So your solution is not sufficient. The system is rotten and it has to go.
“If the problem is “add 450 to 134 using drawings; show your work” and you line them up and add them to get 584, you get it wrong. You must draw the items and then count them one at a time. “
Of course, but it is NOW A GAME to the kids, and the parents. No one is fooled into thinking this has anything at all to do with math...just a silly puzzle.
I agree, for the good of the country, it has to go. For the good of your own kid, teach him right, and also let him have fun amusing the Education Major ‘teacher’.