As a teacher, I see it as my job to introduce, practice and encourage the development of skills that will help my students throughout their life. This isn't always easy, because it is hard to know what the future holds, so which skills will be valuable is a little up in the air. However, I suspect that problem solving will be important, so in my math classes, I stress the value of understanding the given information and taking the time to consider the best plan before starting with any computation to solve a problem. =)
Cheers!