Where Are The Basics ?

In all my years of tutoring one consistent problem I come up against is a lack of basic skills - very basic skills like long mulitplication and times tables. When I ask a student for their four time table, for example, what I usually get is a list of numbers. I then ask the student what seven fours are and I watch the student mentally counting up in their head to get to the answer. Learning a list appears to the "New" way but it`s useless. The product of any two numbers up to twelve should be instantly available and this is best achieved by rote learning the full times tables. Once two is two, two twos are four and so on. That`s how I was taught and I have never looked back since. In science and engineering numeracy is a vital skill and lacking competence in basic arithmetic is a significant impediment. Long multiplication today seems to consist of drawing out a table, breaking the numbers into their decimal components, filling in the grid and adding up the contents. This is the most impractical method I have ever come across and no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, in egineering would use this method. But: it`s 21st century so it must be better than methods from the 60s and 70s. Well from someone from inside industry it`s high time some teachers learned that old, tried and tested methods are far superior to "modern" and therefore supposedly better systems. Teach basic skills properly and my life would be a lot easier and students would be a lot more confident and competent.