The e-mail arrived after my last column (Chapter and Verse).  Referring to that column, the reader essentially asked, “Would you advocate a Problem Solving 101 course in high school and/or college?”  He was referring to ‘more than a math class’, though that connection was also mentioned.
This is a fun-but-complicated question to explore.  On the surface, it is such a great idea and intention.  But like so many other good goals in education, it is fraught with hidden complications.  Some of those complications involve the nature of this beast itself.  Unfortunately, the rest are the inevitable hurdles created by ‘the system’. 
Ironically, I experimented with a version of this idea many years ago, in my first position at a local liberal arts college.   We offered a one-credit-hour Seminar, labeled ‘Problem Solving and Creative Thinking’ – or something like that.  It was open to interested students across campus, regardless of major.  (Part of their long-term semester project was to suggest some improvement at the college and present it to the right person in the chain of command.  A few were enacted!)  
I taught it 2 or 3 different semesters, and the student feedback was generally positive.  I remember particularly that the math majors were most  impressed with the nature of the creative ideas and techniques from non-math majors!  It was eye-opening and instructive for them.
So, yes, I’d love to see a broader ‘problem solving’ vehicle available to high school and/or college students (and especially to future teachers!)   The ability to creatively tackle and possibly solve problems is so helpful both in mathematics, and in life.
But the caveats and hurdles quickly arise. In the first place a full-blown course in problem solving would be as tricky to set up and navigate as a course in, say, learning to ride a bicycle!  In EACH of those cases, we’re dealing with a process that can usually only be learned holistically, and with experience. 
You simply can’t ‘teach’ bicycle-riding with a ‘here’s what you do’ approach.  You can only allow the rider to learn it on his/her own (with help, guidance, and encouragement from an experienced rider, of course). And it is much the same with learning to tackle and solve problems – either in math or in life.  It’s hard to create a class for that.
Another tricky area is the all-too-obvious one:  How would we ‘evaluate’ (as in grade) the students in this course?  (When a still-learning rider falls off the bike the first few times, do we give them a D+ in bike-riding?)   I was able to teach that mentioned Seminar as a pass/fail course – and perhaps that’s an option – but otherwise, this area is full of headaches.  Learning to solve problems takes time.  Moreover, the process usually involves lots of mistakes and false starts.  As we know, our system doesn’t generally like mistakes.  Would we be willing to refrain from ‘over-grading’ students when the mistakes happen in our proposed course? 
Other system-related problems appear quickly.  Who would teach the course?  In what department would the course be housed?  How would credits be labeled?  You get the idea.
Naturally, none of this means that teachers can’t implement a problem-solving unit/theme into any given course.  And, many, if not most, do that. But alas, a course, per se?
One of the sad realities inherent in the internal structure our ‘system’ is that often the best and most creative ideas are the hardest to implement.