[juegos]

I recall as a kid being told our European counterpart's curricula focused on teaching people how to "learn" -- critical thinking etc. from an early age, and remember thinking how that made sense, and wish I was taught that as a kid. I think the root of this problem stems from the structure of us American's educational system.

[imoverclocked]

There are things that any school system excels at more than others. My Bulgarian ex-wife was really good (in comparison to myself and others we met) with trig identities. Math seemed to be strongly emphasized in her youth but that didn’t necessarily impart good overall judgement.

Critical thinking is a core skill that needs to be nurtured for sure. However, critical thinking is useless without basic facts… which means there needs to be some emphasis on wrote memorization. Sometimes those two things can feel at odds; Why memorize anything when it can just be derived?

In a country that simultaneously fights over reciting a pledge because it has “under God” while also fighting against teaching evolution, it’s pretty amazing that we function at all.

[PoignardAzur]

Which European counterpart? Europe is extremely multicultural.

Speaking as someone who went through French school... nope, it's a brutal hellscape where they try to fit you in tidy little boxes and what they teach you is decided on the basis of how easy it is to grade, just like everywhere else.

Though multiple-choice question tests are a lot less common than in the US, I think.

I wish everyone just did Montessori or something similar.

[sofixa]

Not only that, IIRC ( never went through it), France has a popular test format with multiple choice questions, QCM, which penalises you for mistakes ( as in points are actively deducted for every wrong answer instead of just not given), which is IMHO terrible because it encourages memorisation and zero thought.

[PoignardAzur]

I mean, it exists, like everywhere else, but I wouldn't call it popular. Most of the tests aren't multiple-choice.