Tapping Method?

I first heard of this several months back when an agent called to ask if i knew what this was and whether i could teach it... Naturally... "huh"!?!?

A parent spoke to me about it today... turns out it is "the hammering of keys"... right... and that's the way to go in a society like Singapore's? crap... Was also informed that this teacher (a foreigner from a certain place) has advocated paper-chasing so much so that exam pieces are the only repertoire this girl now knows and "hammering" is the only way of playing the piano!? - wat a freak.
Disclaimer: this girl is NOT my piano student.

I have a great number of issues after hearing what this parent had to say
1) the "so-called" tapping method is probably just yet another fanciful name (actually, i would use "fanciful" in its inverted commas) probably coined by some foreigners from the Mainland to teach piano playing... not much of a revelation there! So what is the BIG deal about it?
2) The supposed "tapping method" probably IS the only method which is used to train even and clean running notes. (My Japanese teacher intro-ed the "detached" method to me - and it seems like it's the same thing! the thing is, i won't even call it a method. More like a change in touch.) Perhaps used together with a series of other exercises and other "teaching methods" - suzuki and kodaly, to name a few, would deifinitely enhance a child's learning of music. (I don't even like the word "method" being used here) Why bother, in the first place, to come up with a name tht's so darn LC?
3) This girl - I've seen her play. She loves challenges, she can play. She's only in Primary 3 but is capable of taking Grade 5 practical in the Feb/Mar season next year. She is musical and one can see and almost feel the music oozing out of every inch of her body... unfortunately, the sound that's coming across seem restrained, contrived... a negative effect of the "tapping method"??
4) The method is used by a seemingly prestigious music school here... and supposedly, young talents DO go to this music school to pick up their skills - now if teachers there are teaching things like tht, and just advocating the paper-chase method, then my, my... the future of Singapore's Music Scene sure is bleak!

I can't say i'm against this method as presented to me - perhaps my understanding of the method, as informed by the parent is shallow and hopefully there's more to it than what i've heard. If tht's it, then not much of a method. But, if it is SO then it totally and absolutely explains why a certain group of pupils (not music majors, but foreigners) were always being heard BANGING away at the practice room pianos back in the old NIE @ Bukit Timah campus many years back... No wonder their version of Richard Clayderman's stuff all sounded slaguhtered and without feelings. No wonder... My classmates probably remember those disgusting times we had fighting with non-music majors to use the practice rooms... when we all had to squeeze into ONE room cuz all the rest were occupied by the BANGING of Richard Clayderman's music.