Classic Eastern European pedagogy is different. You give kids problems many /can't/ solve a lot of the time to build resilience. Kids in the West come out with

Classic Eastern European pedagogy is different. You give kids problems many /can't/ solve a lot of the time to build resilience. Kids in the West come out with a fear of failure. Good problems in Western pedagogy are the German style ones, where kids struggle for a bit and then get it, to "build confidence." Kids in the (Soviet-era) East come out understanding there are problems which are easy to solve, hard to solve, and impossible to solve, and you'll face all three in school and in life. You won't know which one you've got until you've tried.