It's so sad, and such a waste of a child's brain.. It's definitely not about learning how to think, but more about learning what to think, getting the right answers and advancing yourself into the system as a fully fledged repeater without being a threat to it by thinking too much..
If I learn a poem or a song it's because I love it and it means something to me. What does that teach children if they're being told to just memorise something, to pass a test? It's so dead, they are treating art like a maths equation... Ugh it gets me so mad, and they are doing this the world over, with millions of minds, every day.