Growing up in the US we were fed a "mythology" about Russian and Chinese schooling that claimed it was all rote memorization without actual understanding. It's

Growing up in the US we were fed a "mythology" about Russian and Chinese schooling that claimed it was all rote memorization without actual understanding. It's been clear for a long time that this was nothing more a form of American exceptionalist propaganda. I wonder if it was ever true? I suspect not. The tragic thing is it now appears that US STEM education (at least for non-elite schools) is closer to the rote-memorization/calculator-bot curriculums than every other school system.