Bleh. It was a good life story, but you could write out the conclusions either way, and the article is mostly successfully defeating a strawman. She makes a goo

Bleh. It was a good life story, but you could write out the conclusions either way, and the article is mostly successfully defeating a strawman. She makes a good point: if you define "understanding" narrowly, such as "whatever it takes to score well at Common Core", then it is important to realize that it is inadequate. Fluency is missing, and important. But it's really just playing with definitions. I'll attack the contrapositive strawman: rote repetition and practice is useless if you don't first understand. You can memorize multiplication tables and the algorithm for multiplying multiple digit numbers, and yet make orders of magnitude mistakes without batting an eye. 40x25=100, right? I would say that you need to understand the basics, then gain fluency, and from that gain an understanding of the depths and nuances. And I think her life story could back that description up just as well as it backs up hers.