DH teaches graduate students statistics and often comments that the foreign students (who are mostly from China) are generally much better at math (and harder-working) than U.S. students. I wonder if that's because math is taught differently in China--I did hear something on NPR a little while ago about how students (maybe in Japan??) were taught to keep working on a problem even if it seemed unsolvable, while U.S. students were quicker to give up. But I wonder if that's all of it, or if compared to our math curriculum the schools in other countries are 'accelerated,' and if so how is it different. Too bad there aren't "Chinese Math" schools or something like that in the U.S.--it might prompt other schools to allow more acceleration, too.