But I did attend elementary school in Japan (and had cousins who went to high school there at the same time I was) and while they may have achieved a proficiency higher than most americans, the freedom granted to me at my high school allowed me to do even better - and I was given a decidedly non-standard education emphasizing critical thinking and questioning of authority.
This served me exceptionally well in college, and on through grad school and postdoctoral studies. Perhaps this is a bit of an overgeneralization, but almost all of the East Asian postdocs that I encountered did not, outwardly, exhibit as critical a stance towards data and evidence as did american postdocs - with the generalizeable exception of the East Asian postdocs who did their grad school in the States.
But I did attend elementary school in Japan (and had cousins who went to high school there at the same time I was) and while they may have achieved a proficiency higher than most americans, the freedom granted to me at my high school allowed me to do even better - and I was given a decidedly non-standard education emphasizing critical thinking and questioning of authority.
This served me exceptionally well in college, and on through grad school and postdoctoral studies. Perhaps this is a bit of an overgeneralization, but almost all of the East Asian postdocs that I encountered did not, outwardly, exhibit as critical a stance towards data and evidence as did american postdocs - with the generalizeable exception of the East Asian postdocs who did their grad school in the States.