+Angela Renee I feel the same way - but even when I was in school I hated "the long way" (as
+Sassy Sabrina put it) - I often forgot to jot down the intermediate steps, because I felt it was easier doing everything in the head, than writing everything down.
My son is a 4th grader (in the danish school system) - I haven't gotten any word from the teachers yet, but maybe they don't care too much for how the results come about - they often get homework in "eMat" (eMath), where they use the computer on a website - there's no place to write anything down but the result.
Also - I'm convinced teaching the kids to do the math in their heads is far more important than teaching them to depend on pen and paper (or worse - their calculator app on the phone)...