Instructors teaching problem-solving techniques for which students have no intellectual need is <i>at best</i> wasting their time. I certainly do not feel like educators care about my education or me as a person when I am forced to learn something merely so that I can be tested on it, rather than because it is intellectually useful. Students are a great deal more perceptive of this than you might think.<p>At a fundamental level - if there is no intellectual need for a concept, <i>how do you justify teaching it?</i> You might say, &quot;well, because the state or national standards test for it.&quot; But then why is it on those tests?