"I could show them that 48x12 was really just 48x10 plus 48x2, which are 480 plus 96, which just makes 576 just-like-that." I learned this lesson on my own, an

"I could show them that 48x12 was really just 48x10 plus 48x2, which are 480 plus 96, which just makes 576 just-like-that." I learned this lesson on my own, and was chastised for it while young. "That's not how you learn multiplication!" And so forth. It was only (much) later until I saw Feynman's infamous videos where he denounced how the subject of Algebra was taught, and it made me feel a lot better about how I went about learning - and how I will teach my son. Or rather, lack of teaching.