$1,000,000 dollars? That is not a lot of money. I probably will spend it within 1 hour. One of the solutions: buying bottles of tasty wine.

I don't think anyone "allows this to happen to their young" as you put it.

Original thought is not exactly overflowing in any part of Chinese culture that I have seen.

Education is simply an extension of what is valued within a culture-and indeed simply part of the culture itself.
It's a common mistake to assume that it is somehow separate from it.

The myth then runs that we can somehow "teach" children to be creative and original in schools-how, when their teachers, parents, friends, textbook and curriculum writers are not creative or original themselves?

The same goes for politicians and government.

I actually can summarise your topic with two words: It sucks.

------------a simple dividing line------------------------

However, I may talk a little bit more:

It's not the dictate of the government. It is merely an aspect of Chinese culture that "independent thinking or 'thinking outside the box' is not highly supported"

And Chinese educationists knew that this system actually kills creativity. But guess what? those people who are qualified as educationist in China are actually bunch of idiots surviving over their creative peers' corpse.

Anyway, I am defending the government, if you check out education system in Korea, Japan and Vietnam, you may found they suck too. Reason? Confucius system is over!

it is just as bad as the rest. Grade inflation is everywhere, and creativity is frowned upon by most advanced education systems worldwide.

They are just factories, pumping out cheap copies of once educated students and worthless certificates. Education is defined as coming up with the most effective way to facilitate cheating or attending a school that won't give you below a B+ as long as you show up.

They could probably answer the question if you asked them to think of an idea that could earn them $1,000,000.

...So somehow, in order for you to keep your job or position, I suppose at the end of the year, despite your protestations on the deficiencies of the Chinese education system, you will be, at the end of the day, promoting it by giving these students a passing grade in order they can move onto the next level.

Or are you planning on failing 40 out of 42 students at the end of the year? If so, I trust you have another job in your back pocket.

Ouch

I was way off.

It could be that desperate need to be accepted in Chinese society thing, most might be afraid to get the assignment wrong.

Yeah, they can't really get this type of opinion assignments wrong(if they give a reasonable answer that follows the instructions) but they're afraid to write an answer that might be different from the majority of their classmates.

40 students in your class are good harmonious students that were probably agreeing with each other about the difficulty of the assignment.

Hope the two that figured it out were celebrated.

If that is true, then it is very refreshing to hear and I am able to rekindle my excitement as to the world is working how it should be working.

Thanks for informing me.
=D>

Much of what you wrote I agree with. But, forming the creative ability is based on developing an essential tool - analytical thinking skills. And this can be taught. Of course,an environment where risk of failure is acceptable is critical too. Both of these are generally lacking in the Chinese education system.

I'm of the opinion that analysis and decision making are two different things.

There are ATS courses readily available (Analytical Trouble Shooting), which try to teach one analytical thinking.