The negative stuff happening in the world seems to spread so much faster and get so much more publicity that it's easy to end up in a constant negative spiral
The idea a student was struggling with one way of solving the problem and teaching them alternative methods never occurred because it was “outside the curriculum”.
It's a tough balance of being 'outside the curriculum' vs 'they don't have time'. There's lot of methods of doing most things in maths. Teachers usually will be trying to take an evidence-based approach of which method is supposedly the most effective for the most people (but unfortunately won't be the most effective for everyone. And then with the amount stuffed into our school curriculum, there just isn't time to cover the alternate methods
We do need more people to work in certain industries. Not necessarily more people in general, but there are absolutely industries that relied on foreign nationals to help them meet staffing levels and after Brexit they aren't meeting those. This is partly due to UK citizens feeling they are 'too good' to do certain types of work, though more and more are now taking these roles as there are no other options as our country becomes poorer.
I think the Internet is partially to blame.
The negative stuff happening in the world seems to spread so much faster and get so much more publicity that it's easy to end up in a constant negative spiral