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I had a chance to compare the systems, too but my conclusions are completely different. Teachers at the physics/math lyceum I studied at were emotionally unstab

I had a chance to compare the systems, too but my conclusions are completely different. Teachers at the physics/math lyceum I studied at were emotionally unstable psychopaths with mood swings. They could switch from calm "kids, if you don't understand something, please, don't hesitate to ask" to the screaming at the top of their lungs of "are you a stupid imbecile? what a moron you're to ask that" just a minute later. It was all about rote memorization. Rules, theorems, axioms. Not just the way to prove or principle behind, but the textual representation (to the teacher's liking) word-to-word. Of course, there was a division of students into multiple groups, and those with important parents had an easier time. Any of their bullshit was always graded as "A". But those actively disliked could get "F" for a perfect work. A dot at the end of the sentence is missing? "Go back to the kindergarten where you belong". Something is crossed? "What is it, a toilet paper? Go use it for wiping your ass" (they could tear it apart in front of you). So, the representation/look of the work always came first. A teacher was a lawyer, prosecutor, and a judge at the same time (just what some Americans wish to have as a state): you don't like something, go f___ yourself. The textbooks. If you compare the best Soviet ones with some average American, you can come to the conclusion that Soviet are so good ("exercises are something to behold", "high quality in their expression", etc). But the best American books wouldn't give a single chance to the Soviet ones. In fact, even some Russian Empire textbooks so much better than Soviet (not to mention Russian), they are getting popular among parents for homeschooling (schools can't use books unauthorized by the ministry of education). The best American and pre-Soviet textbooks are born out of lectures, author's personal experience with students. Soviet authors are disinterested observers who don't care. Textbooks, apparently, were the product of central planning like process (so they were getting worse and worse, the further they went from Russian Empire epoch). And finally, a thing that really deeply touched me at a western University. A teacher when asked a question once said "I don't know, I have to check it". Holly f... Someone who openly admitted they don't know something, no freaking way! Back at the lyceum it would be "Shut your mouth with your stupid question, we don't have time for that". Then she would find the answer and during the next class say something like "now when we have a few minutes, I'll do you a favor, here is the answer... What a moron you're not to be able to conceive this yourself".

filoleg 5y ago
I was about to reply with something like this, so thank you for posting it. I don't know where the top level grandparent comment comes from, but your experience matches mine almost 1:1 (except I went to school in russia between 2001-2010, so hardly soviet anymore, and then finished up high school+college in the US). Something to keep in mind: my school in Russia wasn't just a random school, but a physics+math focused gymnasium, one of the best public schools in the city. I am shuddering to even think what it was like at less well off schools. Everything was about rote memorization, to the level i couldn't imagine in the US. Physics? Nope, memorize everything, you don't need to understand why or how formulas relate to each other or what they mean. Math? Nope, no need to understand logic behind anything, just memorize the formulas. Even with something like programming, we had to memorize bubble sort in TurboPascal, without the algorithm ever explained at a higher/pseudocode level (it was introduced in TurboPascal right off the bat and you had to memorize it line by line, I wish I was kidding; we were graded on how line-by-line it matched the given solution, not on whether the implementation actually worked/was valid). It was pain, I barely learned anything, and was convinced that I am destined to never do well in physics, thinking "this was just not for me, i am not smart enough to get it". Then we moved to the US, and I felt like my eyes were opened. Physics were explained from bottom up, from actual phenomena and how they worked, and formulas were just a glue connecting those phenomena and their interactions together. There was zero actual need to waste time memorizing those formulas, despite formula sheets not being allowed on the exams, because they actually explained the logic/reasoning behind it all, so it was no issue at all to simply derive those formulas on your own during the exam. Same happened with math and programming. I actually finally understood what I was doing, rather than robotically recalling appropriate strings to put on paper from memory. In the russian school I went to, logic didn't matter, only correct answers. For a specific example, in every single physics course I ever took in the Russia, if you got the calculation wrong for one small part of the problem (which propagated to the final answer being incorrect), but you got the rest of it right, you get 0% for that problem. While in the US high school/college, I could even omit a small part of the problem that I didn't know how to solve, put a placeholder number there, and then solve the rest of the problem correctly, and I will get points for the parts I got right. Which makes sense, because if I forgot how to solve one out of many subproblems, but know the rest perfectly, or if I miscalculated a single variable, i just lose points for that portion. It isn't "all or nothing, the only thing that matters is the final answer." I get part of the reason the "all or nothing" system was done in my russian school, it makes grading much easier. But it also introduces tons of both false positives and false negatives. You know how to solve everything, but screwed up one small calculation? No points for the problem. Oh, you got the right answer at the end and wrote a bunch of gibberish to "get" to that answer (because you just copied the answer from someone else without knowing how to solve it at all)? Well, you got the answer right, so we will give you almost all the points. Cheating was off the charts. And that is at one of the most "prestigious" and highly ranked specialized gymnasium schools. Of course, high school in the US still had plenty of memorization, but not even close to 100% like it was in Russia for me. And once US college hit me, it became even better. >A teacher when asked a question once said "I don't know, I have to check it". Holly f... Someone who openly admitted they don't know something, no freaking way! This, so much. Professors/teachers behaving like humans instead of "even if i was wrong, I am marking you down because you argued with the teacher, and the teacher is always right", that was incredible for me. P.S. sorry for the long rant, but it bottled up, especially after seeing comments proclaiming the exact opposite of what I, and every single person I know in real life who went to high school/university in Russia, have experienced. Oh, and no comment on "Russian schools in the US" (as I feel like they could indeed be great, but the "russian" part of them is imo just a marketing trick), as that's a very different beast that I have zero experience with. I was talking only about Russian schools in Russia.

filoleg 5y ago

I was about to reply with something like this, so thank you for posting it. I don't know where the top level grandparent comment comes from, but your experience matches mine almost 1:1 (except I went to school in russia between 2001-2010, so hardly soviet anymore, and then finished up high school+college in the US). Something to keep in mind: my school in Russia wasn't just a random school, but a physics+math focused gymnasium, one of the best public schools in the city. I am shuddering to even think what it was like at less well off schools. Everything was about rote memorization, to the level i couldn't imagine in the US. Physics? Nope, memorize everything, you don't need to understand why or how formulas relate to each other or what they mean. Math? Nope, no need to understand logic behind anything, just memorize the formulas. Even with something like programming, we had to memorize bubble sort in TurboPascal, without the algorithm ever explained at a higher/pseudocode level (it was introduced in TurboPascal right off the bat and you had to memorize it line by line, I wish I was kidding; we were graded on how line-by-line it matched the given solution, not on whether the implementation actually worked/was valid). It was pain, I barely learned anything, and was convinced that I am destined to never do well in physics, thinking "this was just not for me, i am not smart enough to get it". Then we moved to the US, and I felt like my eyes were opened. Physics were explained from bottom up, from actual phenomena and how they worked, and formulas were just a glue connecting those phenomena and their interactions together. There was zero actual need to waste time memorizing those formulas, despite formula sheets not being allowed on the exams, because they actually explained the logic/reasoning behind it all, so it was no issue at all to simply derive those formulas on your own during the exam. Same happened with math and programming. I actually finally understood what I was doing, rather than robotically recalling appropriate strings to put on paper from memory. In the russian school I went to, logic didn't matter, only correct answers. For a specific example, in every single physics course I ever took in the Russia, if you got the calculation wrong for one small part of the problem (which propagated to the final answer being incorrect), but you got the rest of it right, you get 0% for that problem. While in the US high school/college, I could even omit a small part of the problem that I didn't know how to solve, put a placeholder number there, and then solve the rest of the problem correctly, and I will get points for the parts I got right. Which makes sense, because if I forgot how to solve one out of many subproblems, but know the rest perfectly, or if I miscalculated a single variable, i just lose points for that portion. It isn't "all or nothing, the only thing that matters is the final answer." I get part of the reason the "all or nothing" system was done in my russian school, it makes grading much easier. But it also introduces tons of both false positives and false negatives. You know how to solve everything, but screwed up one small calculation? No points for the problem. Oh, you got the right answer at the end and wrote a bunch of gibberish to "get" to that answer (because you just copied the answer from someone else without knowing how to solve it at all)? Well, you got the answer right, so we will give you almost all the points. Cheating was off the charts. And that is at one of the most "prestigious" and highly ranked specialized gymnasium schools. Of course, high school in the US still had plenty of memorization, but not even close to 100% like it was in Russia for me. And once US college hit me, it became even better. >A teacher when asked a question once said "I don't know, I have to check it". Holly f... Someone who openly admitted they don't know something, no freaking way! This, so much. Professors/teachers behaving like humans instead of "even if i was wrong, I am marking you down because you argued with the teacher, and the teacher is always right", that was incredible for me. P.S. sorry for the long rant, but it bottled up, especially after seeing comments proclaiming the exact opposite of what I, and every single person I know in real life who went to high school/university in Russia, have experienced. Oh, and no comment on "Russian schools in the US" (as I feel like they could indeed be great, but the "russian" part of them is imo just a marketing trick), as that's a very different beast that I have zero experience with. I was talking only about Russian schools in Russia.