A North West View

So I am trying not to be discouraged, but it has become clear in the efforts of the last week to crash study math that I have not used since high school that I have forgotten most all of the basic algebraic concepts. Not only that, I am also having trouble trying to learn them all again in a matter of days. I am retaining some of the information but not all of it and having trouble retaining important parts of some of the things that I am trying to learn again.  It has also become very clear that my math teachers in high school did no service by teaching to the calculator and having us use pricey sophisticated calculators to solve the equations rather then doing it extensively by pen and paper/in ones head. I get why they would want to do that, it is much easier to teach a class when you have them all using the same tool to do the work and have to account much less to students differences in mathematical abilities, but in the long run it dose a disservice to the students and their