In hindsight, I think it would have been helpful if the schools I went to introduced the concept of an algorithm. I remember we spent a lot of time learning Lattice multiplication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_multiplication) and I would get frustrated having to draw all the little boxes when the "traditional" way was much faster for me. It would have been beneficial if they stressed the concept of algorithms and showed me there are, in fact, many more ways to multiply numbers together.