His criticism is peculiar given that recent decades have seen reforms in math education that have been criticized for moving away from the very things that he claims math education has moved toward: memorization, drills, and standard algorithms. In my experience, it is unusual to have students memorize such formulas. Instead, they are provided during tests. As for introduction to such a formula in class, it is not adequate to just state the formula, as good understanding can be achieved by an explanation or demonstration related to what should be already known: how to find the area of a rectangle or parallelogram. The author’s puzzle method can work as a way to begin to get to that formula. Such experience can help a student recall the formula even if memorization is not required. As for the idea that there is nothing for the student to do when just provided with a formula for calculation purposes, as if the activity is trivial to accomplish, there are many students who do not quickly get the skill of seemingly simple substitution of values for variables and successful calculation without some practice.