"Actually there is a school of thought that this approach is better than say the way education works in the USA.."

Have you finally jumped down from the fence and landed in Kevin's back yard? At least we will know where you stand- perhaps Kevin will arrange with his puppet masters to have your strings fitted-if the boss still has connections on the farm, the ring also.

America is a wonderful country and I have many good friends from the colonies but they do have their fair share of nutters. I assume you were talking about "school of thinkers" within USA.

I agree with Dragonized who answered you well. But who am I to deign to agree with what he said? I recently listened to BBC, a special discussion where top Chinese interlectuals participated, all concerned that it is impossible for the Chinese to produce a top scientist or any other inventive person until they adopt western education and stop pressurising kids with work and more work at crap traing centres. They were however mostly concerned about the high suicide rate among young students, as part and parcel.