There is a vast difference in level of education depending on where you live.
Things like etiquette, business and investing are taught in schools, all depends on which public schools you go to.
A boatload of testing, rigorous learning combined with high formal standards, that's to say an actual meritocracy is how you can quite literally churn out geniuses. Chess is a good example.
three out of four of them are doing alright, and the one that didn't failed because it endorsed an economic system that engaged exactly in the kind of cronyism and bizarre political machinations that the OP actually wants on a school curriculum.
>The ones who survive are the calculators who can't think for themselves
Well neither can your average Ivy league humanity's graduate at this point so at least they've got that in common. Thinking for yourself is overrated. if you manage to produce engineers at a rate ten times higher than everyone else and manage to not destroy your economy with central planning you'll surprised how far that can take you.
Isn't the way chess was taught essentially a system of tutoring? As soon as a 'prodigy' is identified, they started playing against Grand Masters outside of tournaments.
"But the real basis of the Soviet school was its colossal infrastructure, creating a pool of millions. As the huge Soviet training campaign bore fruit, and literally hundreds of players achieved master or grandmaster strength between the 1940s and 1960s, a vast system of rewards and punishments was built up, with endless in-fighting and denunciations. The life of a chess professional was a privileged one: stipends were much higher than average wages, and foreign travel allowed. Botvinnik and his successor Vassily Smyslov were awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest civilian Soviet honour—no British professional has received so much as a knighthood."
that's why they dominate chess forever. the talentpool is huge, and education is good. nobody else comes close, in infrastructure and level.
Also Russia isn't dominting chess anymore. They have a single player in the world top10 and 3 in the top20. [1]
Except Magnus, the top 100 are 150pts apart, which is extremely close in ability. #100 could expect to beat #2 in 1 out of 3 games.
And the educational divide globally and development of science excellence pretty much only grows. How is this even a discussion given the evidence, any countries around that run on 'aristocratic homeschooling'? Saudi royal family kids in Swiss private schools?
And yet here you are making a judgement on the effectiveness of a method of education purely based on the single datapoint chess.
But leaving the hypocrisy aside, I don't think chess is a good example to begin with. The reason why Russia dominated chess is because chess was there a lot more popular compared to other countries. That this theroy likely makes sense is supported by the rise of China and India with their massive population compared to other countries. Having a high amount of interest and good education are components that often reinforce eachother. More opportunities to learn and compete with strong players improves ones own skill level.
Why was there a higher interest in chess in Russia? I can only guess, but I would say the long and cold winters that make outside activites impossible most of the year play an important role.
On top of that the world chess rankings are actually quite diverse since the rise of internet chess. Russia only has a single spot in the top 10 strongest players. [1] The rise of video gaming that competes with chess for indoor mental activity has probably something to do with that.
For example, public education system doesn't particularly touch on social skills, etiquette, rulership/leadership, Machiavellianism, business, investing, property management, etc.