I would love to talk to this person. I mean, by 1982, good music had only been recorded for about five years, and the first two were iffy. We could safely just forget all the crap before that. '80 and '81 were solid years though. But really, good music was just starting to form by 1982.
I mean, we can all have hot takes, right? Never mind that I’m mostly serious 
That’s sort of an “it depends” sort of thing… it depends a lot on your understanding of how music works and not so much on how long youve been playing. When i was “young” i played music for about 10 years and then didnt learn to play bass until about 30 years later…but i always listen to music and whistle harmonies and improvized melodies so i can just hear where music is going, even when i dont know the song. If you cant do that, I’ll definitely make things more difficult.
It totally depends on you and id suggest you learn songs that you like, that youre already somewhat familiar with as that will make things easier. As far as heartbreak hotel, its relatively easy with a fairly slow walking bass line but I’d never play it unless it was for a gig or friends because i think its boring with a lot of repetition and a lot of sections with no playing… i dont play songs i dont like 
Its rare that i play a song im not familiar with but i did find something on yousician the other night that id never heard before. It was a good challenge and fun playing through it the first time (at about 80% speed) only having the music (tab) to go by 
Your teacher works for you, if what theyre doing does not fit your style of learning, ask them to change what theyre doing or find another teacher. I think a teacher should be providing you with material to work on, then in a following lesson, listening to you and/or playing through with you to critique it and assess your progress. If you’re just going to play along with a tab, you can do that alone with a backing track for free
Re: “no good music after 1982”… Relax, guys, it’s called hyperbole 
It’s called “incorrect”
You need a new teacher. Sounds like a bad conflict in styles
IMHO
I had to bust out my leg warmers and perm my hair for this one! 
Don’t let this guy discourage you! It’s totally normal to play a song at a slower speed when it’s new. When I’m learning a new song, I’ll listen to it a few times, then go through the tab at my own SLOW pace (working on each section separately). Then I’ll go to youtube and play along at 50-75% speed, and gradually build up to full speed. It can take days or weeks to build up to full speed, depending on the difficulty.
As far as kids learning faster-- an adult who practices consistently is going to learn faster than a kid who doesn’t practice. : )
You can simplify that to someone who practices learns faster than someone who doesn’t.
Age, gender, small hands, big hands, are just things
Having done a lot of stuff with my daughter as she was growing up, (like take tap dance when she had several years of a head start) I was able to pretty easily catch up with her with significantly less work/time than she put in… because I could more easily observe/recognize what was required to learn a skill efficiently.
From many years of learning and sports, I’ve also developed good skills to visualize things and learn/practice them in my mind. Once you’ve learned how to learn, it makes a lot of things much easier 
As a perpetual language learner, one thing I have found enlightening is a few resources that bust the myth that kids always learn faster. While it’s true that they have a natural neuroplasticity advantage, as adults we have much more context to apply to learning. For example, kids have to learn difficult grammatical concepts while they are also learning all the rest of the language; we have already done so in our own languages and so it is easier to map the concepts. We have a much larger frame of reference to learn in.
The same is true for music. As an obvious example, things like reading music, chords, intervals, and theory on the bass were a nonissue for me due to knowing the concepts from other instruments. Switching to apply those concepts to bass was natural. From a physical perspective, another obvious example is guitarists having an easier time with the handwork than I did.
Even if you don’t have those, one thing we all do have is a life spent listening to music. Listening might be the most important skill of all. Kids have to learn it; we just have to refine it. This is a huge advantage.
One of the biggest things that kids have is they’re not afraid to make mistakes and do a thing poorly until they get good at it. Kids also conduct a lot of experiments to understand how things work. Most kids also never think “I can’t do this” when they decide to try something.
Good adult learners do a lot of the same things that kids do
The advantage the kids have is time (if they put the damn phones down).