While not wishing to perpetuate cultural stereotypes, proverbs can say a lot about how our cultural values can influence student achievement.

In Japan there is a famous saying: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” And the Japanese classroom is the best place to observe young students being hammered down to size.

Until recently, I taught English in Japan as a ‘team teacher’ with other Japanese teachers of English. In one of my classes, there was a bright, inquisitive 13-year-old boy who stuck out like a sore thumb, a nail, a tall poppy. He couldn’t control his urge to ask questions.

From the teacher’s perspective, his questions were distracting her from teaching the material that she needed her students to learn, for them to do well in their exams, to help them get the qualifications they needed to succeed in life.

The teacher’s response was clear, quickly executed and effective. Hammer ’em down and concentrate on the rest of the class. You could argue this choice enables the best average outcome for all students.

The effect of the hammer-down technique, as every foreign teacher of English in Japan knows, can be seen in the response to a question put to the class. A stony silence from a set of non-expressive faces. Japanese students live in fear of standing out from the group.

As a result, Japanese students do not think critically or divergently. This has a flow-on effect on the Japanese society and economy. Japan needs people who are creative and challenge the status quo; instead, it is creating a bunch of yes men and blank poppy faces.

In contrast, by international tests of readiness for knowledge-worker jobs, New Zealand’s 15-year-olds are among the top performing countries in thinking creatively and critically and solving real world problems. We are, however, behind other countries in the more traditional measures of numeracy, literacy, and scientific knowledge.

I don’t think New Zealand actually has a tall poppy syndrome anymore, at least not compared with Japan. Our country is too diverse. We have fields of many different flowers that can bloom beautifully with the right concoction of sunlight, water and soil. It takes skill and commitment to respond to this diversity; to provide all students with the basic knowledge and skills for them to participate in society; and to foster inquiring, creative, and innovative minds. Given the skills it takes, as a society we need to have more respect for teaching as a profession. We need to learn from our best teachers, the tallest poppies.