Experimentation is part of learning though. Heck, failing is part of learning! We really need to teach kids that just because you fail a few times at something you're not bad at it - it's part of learning.
Imaging cooking was putting raw food in a box and a meal comes out of the other end. Imagine that box has a series of dials each ranging from 0-100. You don’t know what any of the dials actually do. Depending on your input, any number of settings can make a meal ranging from edible to amazing. But far more settings result in “Dubious Food.” Any individual setting can ruin the entire thing. Sure, you can power through 100 to the X combinations and ultimately, after much frustration and time and ruined food, sort of figure things out. But it’s much easier if someone says “set dial A to 53, dial B to 36,”. This lets you just tweak one dial and figure out what that dial does. Once you’ve done that you can go from dial to dial and then see how multiple dials interact. But if you just start fiddling with knobs you either get lucky or learn nothing; or you’re relying on knowledge you think everyone has even though they don’t.
Failure is ok.
Recipes should have all the ingredients in measurable quantities. All steps should be laid out in proper order, with proper technique, times and temperatures explained.
Sure. Once you're past the beginner stage, you can just glance at the description and figure out what you need. But you have to pass that beginner stage first.
> We really need to teach kids
Ah yeah. Because every single beginner is a kid, and everyone learns to cook when they are kids.