One of the Indian parents at ds's school would agree. As a doctor, she sees a big difference between the Indian and American ways of preparing students for medicine: the Indian system, according to her, relies on lots of rote memorization, while the American way is to teach students principles of research and expect them to start using them earlier. And she 'voted with her feet', so to speak - she and her husband chose the U.S. to work and raise their family in.
I found myself working as a data center operator alongside several individuals who had been doing it for over 20 years in the same shop. And I was often flabbergasted by some of my peers' over their inflexibility and inability to think beyond the scripted responses.
A few of my peers were from the Philippines and educated there, and I had a meaningful exchange with one of them one day when, during a quiet hour in the data center, he was exercising his mind by attempting to recall the entire text of the Gettysburg Address. He asked me if I recalled any of it... and I said no, why would I want to? He went on to relate how his schooling had been full of such rote memorization drills, and included such documents as the Declaration of Independence, King's "I Have a Dream" speech, etc. As someone educated in America, surely I'm more familiar with these things than he?
And this was when it became apparent to me that he had been taught to remember things, and I had been taught to think... which explains why, after merely 18 months on the job, I was appointed his shift lead.
