The class of your teacher seems very interesting, so if possible, I want to listen to an evaluation your teacher has as a modern educator.
Most of the adult's evaluations toward the pressure-free education is considerably bad. Until today, I have never heard a good evaluation. Therefore, those who made a contibution to the execution is criticized for their being so shallow.(*At present, some people say that they made a contibution to the execution in order to ruin the Japanese soceity.)
Simply giving a lot of free time is anything but a good way without allowing for the number of goods of modern Japanese society or this world. Today this world is overfloating with a large number of goods. Consequentially, the goods have become the temptation which prevents young people from studing hard. For example, the temptation means the Internet, cellular phone, TV game and so on. These goods was once so fanciful that they were thought not to be going to come into being in those days, but the fact is that the technical progress which changed fanciful goods into real goods is now shaking the Japanese education in conjunction with the pressure-free education.
Originally, school is where students learn much knowledge, but as you say, rote learning is anything but good. This problem will be endless unless focusing on what is the best way students develop their academic ability with an interest in study.
