Now that I've got my conclusion, it's time to go look for evidence that only supports said conclusion!

This is not a problem. Science includes peer review for sanity checks. Her paper might be a case study; it's not necessarily a null hypothesis rejection.

I dunno, I’d give it the benefit of the doubt. It might just be an incredibly niche topic, like a poor prognosis for early onset schizophrenia in adopted women of color.
(And yes, you can hit me with the schizophrenia fun facts)
- Also...this is how every English teacher I've ever met teaches scholarly writing. Pick a topic, research sources about that topic that support your thesis, pad it to 5 pages with meaningless filler sentences and repetition.
  Mind you, this is usually persuasive writing class, ie "Here's what you should be doing and here's why." Which 1. pretty much is going to start with the conclusion and then back that up with cited studies, and 2. isn't part of the scientific method in the way an experimental report is.
  "Effects on manganese dioxide on the central and peripheral nervous systems of primates" is a scientific article, "Why You should be eating fewer AA batteries" is not a scientific article.
- No. She’s a teacher, and teachers of all people should be expected to know how the scientific method works.
  
  I’m confused. Person is writing a paper and looking for supporting evidence based on what they have observed. They are not running a study.
  Science starts with what you have observed and you make a guess based on that information, and then you try to find out if you’re right.
  For example, I see a big yellow orb in the sky a lot of the time. Why? Does the earth rotate about a big yellow orb? Does a big yellow orb rotate about the earth?
  Being wrong about your guess does not negate that which you have observed. You might learn why you observe what you have observed but it does not take away from the fact that yes you have indeed observed something. This person has made observations and is trying to justify that using existing research. Again, they are not running a study. You don’t know if existing literature points to the persons hypothesis being wrong. You don’t know if it’s something that hasn’t really been studied so there isn’t that much evidence right now and person is trying to get someone to look into an issue.
  
  There are different levels of understanding.
  I'm trained in physical sciences. I studied at university and then worked ~8 years for a research department and at one point learned 2D NMR and how to run molecular simulations on a supercomputer. I'm well aware of the challenges of winning grants against colleagues and getting papers published and surviving peer review and then hoping your work gets noticed outside your weird little niche.
  My buddy is a schoolteacher. He can run circles around me with arithmetic and explain the scientific method in rap format. Kids eat it up! But he's probably never done a gradient integral (not that I remember how either) or contributed to a collegiate press release.
  We're both ostensibly working with the same core principles but the reality ends up quite different. Context matters.
  
  You are demonstrating that you don't understand how the scientific method works.
  Truly apt username, btw.

It sounds like what they want to do is write an essay from extensive personal experience (presumably the topic of the essay is being critical of the education system), but since that isn't accepted they have to find articles about the same topic. IMO there is nothing wrong with writing an essay based on personal experience.
- That was my read too: because anecdotal evidence is untrustworthy, now they need to legitimatize what they've observed firsthand.
  
  It's not that anecdotal evidence is untrustworthy, it's that it's only applicable to those who were the ones to experience said anecdote.
- Plus someone has to be the first person to write about it.

It's kind of ironic that you're posting this this way, basically telling us to draw our conclusions about the person who wrote this without any information on what they're talking about or why this is bad or laughable to back it up.
Making prognostications on the future isn't something that necessarily adheres to the scientific method.

What exactly is there to judge here? There’s almost no context. When I was an English major, this was the process for writing literally any paper. You pick what you want to write about and try to find published articles that support your claims. If you can’t find any, pick something else.

Isn't this the scientific method? Form a hypothesis and then test said hypothesis?
- You test it, yes, but you have to be willing to be wrong. Just looking for everything that proves you're right is not scientific.
  
  I guess I don't read this as them refusing to learn they are wrong...

Tell me (OP) you've never written an academic essay without telling me you've never written an academic essay. Lmao

Politics in a nut shell

Strong "As a _____...." energy. Insert whatever generic common role you think has given you unique insight into the universe that the rest of us, including PHDs with decades of research on the subject, can only dream about. "Mother", "Veteran", "Senator", etc.

Flat earther? Creationist?

This isn't terribly believable; I've seen some wildly bad takes in "the literature" because there's just so many for-profit journals that you get a ton of junk science. That, or you find something in the archives from 50 years ago.
Now, if the professor is any good they'll put restrictions on even that but the bar is so low we're just happy to see a citation that isn't a blog or made up by AI.