When I was in high school many of my classmates told me the 'did not like word problems.' I now realize that kids who do not like word problems are kids who do not understand what they are being taught.
This is exactly what Sal, the founder of Khan Academy, believes. What strengthens this argument is that, if you miss a few logical steps you end up even more baffled when you encounter concepts that are build upon the concepts on which you neglected to learn, mostly because you were either embarrassed to ask in class or because you thought that you got it right in the first place.
This, adding the fact that it's "socially acceptable" to claim that a person might not be smart enough and give up entirely, is what makes children fail in the end and deemed to be "stupid".
When I was in high school many of my classmates told me the 'did not like word problems.' I now realize that kids who do not like word problems are kids who do not understand what they are being taught.
Ant that is most of the kids.