I know I'm completely over-generalizing here but the Russians seem to really take to the memorization part while the Americans ask a million questions about why things must be so. Our teacher is always pleasant but seems to get equally frustrated with both sides. On the eastern half of the classroom she admonishes, "Stop translating Turkish into Russian, we don't think the same way." I'm pretty sure that's a true statement but this seemingly mindless (to an American at least) emphasis on rote memorization can take folks miles off course if they get it wrong somehow.
"Stop asking me why" she says to the Americans, "it's our Turkish language." I am daily reminded of the different learning styles and the fact that Americans in general are taught to ask why and to challenge the status quo. This is definitely not the traditional Turkish method of learning nor, as far as I can tell, the Russian approach. Lots of broad generalizations here but the clear vibe from the teacher is that the Americans just need to memorize more and ask less. Delving deeper is often misconstrued as questioning the teacher's authority.
The kids also come home with stories of impatient teachers who aren't in the mood for more challenging questions from the American kids. It's hard to know how to advise them since they are encouraged at school in the US to come up with reasons why or why not and to try and argue the "other" side of almost any issue. This is not cool, at least at school, so here we sit during mid-term week watching the kids memorize scads of stuff. Very interesting to see the difference between accumulating information and critical thinking. As a product of the latter you can guess my bias.
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