If you teach chemistry at community college you'll find that arrow-pushing and teaching reaction mechanisms is discouraged by faculty and resented by students because these things won't be on the test. But arrow pushing is a unifying concept that shows up everywhere; the sooner it is introduced, the better, as a chemist you really need to be familiar with the idea and its implications.

As a c.c student wishing to go further you have two problems: you need to discover the concepts that were not taught because they were "too difficult" and you need to gain familiarity with them, and that is easier with proper instruction,.