I love a good argument, never let teachers decide what is or is not teaching. Any knowledge passed to a child in any way is teaching, even if it is not structured, we have the occasional hawkinge, or such but where are all the brunels etc (this list could be endless so one will do ) of the victorian age and before. Standing in a dole queue or a street corner texting their mates about the next score they will be making never realising their true potential because teachers said no no we have to go by the national curriculum and health and safety said, no teaching that subject is dangerous.
Teaching is one of those things that are too important to leave solely to "experts," but I think the same is true of most things. If you accept that though, you can't really lay the blame for "kids today" on teachers, can you, at least not without some combination of stupidity and dishonesty.
I don't know how it is in the UK, but in the US, I think teachers often take a defensive posture that ends up being counter-productive for themselves, their profession, their students, and society, but I also understand why they act that way.
I think at the root, public school teachers have never been really adequately compensated economically. This is in part because of the values of the profession, that their reward has never been solely monetary. It is in part entwined with the fact that teaching was one of the few professions open to women. Combine the willingness to work for less with the lack of other options, and you have a profession that is broadly underpaid. That cost was subsidized by the teachers and their families, often young women who taught before marrying and having kids, "spinsters," and women with working husbands who wanted to make extra money and/or needed a challenge outside the household. Women gained a wider range of career opportunities though, and rather than adjusting to that fact by paying higher salaries, society continued to underpay. This has likely led to a decline in the average quality of teachers, but it has also made all teachers suspicious and defensive of outside critics. This pressure is made worse by the fact that teaching isn't that something that benefits tremendously from the "efficiency" that drives down the cost of many other goods and services.
The other issue is that people don't actually understand teaching. They might think they do, because, they went through a couple of decades of education as students, but it isn't that simple. People often don't understand how THEY learn, and they apply that incorrect or incomplete understanding to how other people learn, and by extension, to teaching. The fundamental problem is that people are assessing their mind, and how it changes, using their mind, as it changes.
None of this is to say that teaching doesn't have a significant number of problems, it does, but I find myself, once again, suggesting that treating people with respect, rather than contempt, is a better way forward.
I personally love the idea of giving kids opportunities to take things apart. I am as confident as I can be about anything that it was an important part of my childhood. In fact, I was so sure of it then, that when I was 13 or so, I criticized my younger brother for not doing more of it himself. And yet, as an adult, he is quite competent at making and fixing things, so clearly, I was overconfident in my understanding of how people work.
This may well be one of those things that some teachers or others with self-professed expertise or authority will object to. My experience is that, often, the best route forward is to nod politely, and then keep looking for people who are interested. Start with the people who get it, and then build on that experience and success -- fortunately, it sounds like that has already happened in aargee's area.
I'm very interested to hear about how it goes, because I've been entertaining thoughts about doing something similar.