This is so stereotyped an opinion that it's almost a joke -- although admittedly it's a hard opinion to refute, because there's arguments both ways. I won't do

This is so stereotyped an opinion that it's almost a joke -- although admittedly it's a hard opinion to refute, because there's arguments both ways. I won't downvote out of respect and that's not what downvoting is supposed to be for -- and in fact merits a response. But I will say that for all of the US's desire to have creative kids, we pretty badly fail on bringing up basic education standards to anything close to what Japan (or other similar countries) have. I'll offer my own caricatured view on modern US public K-6 education on the other extreme -- let's have the kids discover the most rudimentary rules of math on their own because our average teacher isn't able to handle a rigorous curiculum, and muddle through the basics because it "makes them feel good"!