[mooze]

If this is true, then schools are literally quashing creativity.

When I was in high school my maths teacher insisted on us using algebraic methods to solve geometry problems. (I'm a visual-spatial thinker, go figure.) The reasoning went: laying the steps out that way would guarantee 'process points', even if you got the result wrong. Not possible with a geometric approach. This was in preparation for the Chinese Gaokao, mind, so points were a matter of life and death (or so it felt like).