Are Korean and Chinese not like factories? I always thought they were more so than American, to the point of famously turning out people who have a bizarre ability to imitate knowledge but not have it (much like Chinese factories can fill dollar stores and Walmart with stuff that has an amazing superficial resemblance to functionng functioning products)
I think its about teaching rote memory vs creativity. It seems as though Math and rote memory are the things that attribute to the success of large scale operations. Whereas Creativity (thinking outside the box and connecting the dots of seemingly different things) is what attributes to the success of new ventures.
It's North American culture to be able to think outside the box (regardless of how bad the public school systems are here) which is why most of the innovation comes from here. It is also why the factories are mostly in Asia, because the process of streamlining production has a lot to do with getting the math right.
