Real Mathematics

There has recently been a pervasive and disturbing trend in the teaching of elementary mathematics, emphasizing "real-world" applications and analogies as a means of teaching the subject.  The approach necessarily reduces the stress placed on abstract formalism.  Consequently, I believe that it is essentially useless and a waste of time to anyone who aspires to learn real mathematics as it is practiced today.  But grandiose aspirations aside, there is a more pragmatic question that must be asked of this method of instruction: do the students learn better and faster?  For some time now, this "applied" method has been lauded as being easier and more natural for students to learn.  Shockingly, however, this hypothesis has not been rigorously tested.  One of the first randomized experiments on the matter seems to indicate what I have suspected all along: students learn better from the abstract approach, while real-world analogies primarily serve to confuse and befuddle.  While I doubt that such studies will have any impact on the generally incompetent primary mathematics education crowd, it's comforting to know that I am now learning mathematics the right way.