To be fair, what was said in this video is relevant to the education system in many other Asian countries. We believe that intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and creativity are super important in today's world but the current system is set up to achieve the exact opposite. Here at Asian Boss, we create content to raise awareness, start a conversation and challenge the status quo. It's up to you to speak up, listen to different opinions and engage in discussions. If you'd like to volunteer as our reporter to cover similar issues in different parts of Asia, get in touch with us at askasianboss@gmail.com

"Children have blind faith in those who raise them." I like that quote.

"Children have blind faith in those who raise them. " Realest shit I've read in a really long time

Hi Asian Boss, a long-time fan here. I am glad that you discuss my native country of Finland with Japanese people, but there are some things that were incorrect in that Michael Moore movie. Finnish kids do get homework. In the first year there may be no homework or just a little bit, but the amount increases over the years. We also write a standardized test in the end of high school called matriculation exams. And we do get report cards after each term at school. What was correct though was that school days are short compared to other countries. After each 45 minute class there is a 15 minute recess and kids go out to play. that way your mind gets to take a rest and then you are ready and full of energy for another class. I suppose the Finnish way of teaching is very efficient that way.

When you aren't allow to question things you aren't learning.

Being a Finn and having also studied in Japan I think there is a fundamental difference how Finland and many other western countries approach education compared to Japan. In Finland school is there to teach people how to argument and express oneself as well as how to go about finding information and distinguishing if the information is reliable. In Japan, school is more meant to condition kids to become obedient adults and hard working members of society.

"Why did you only get 99 out of 100? You are not good enough! You are a disgrace" Move along, just a typical Asian parent.

I'm from Finland and I think some of the reasons why our education is so good is because our teachers has to have a masters degree from university which takes about to 5 years to complete and because teaching is one of the most popular jobs in Finland it is quite difficult to get in to university to study to became a teacher. They have a really difficult written exam first and they they call some of the people to take psychological test and then decide which ones are accepted. So those who get in and graduate are actually motivated and fit to teach. Also we don't have any hierarchy in Finland. We call our teachers by their first names and think of them more as friends. You would never hear someone calling a person Mr. something in Finland that would be just too weird. And I never understood why Asian countries always rank their students in everything. Why in world do you need to know who is the best and worst student in your class or school? That just brings unnecessary stress for everyone and parents comparing their children "why are you worse than that kid?" even when they are doing good enough in school.

There's a reason why the educational channels on youtube always have comments where people say they learn more from educational youtube videos than in school. Learning is awesome and fun but schools take that away.

so you're telling me that school in anime isn't an accurate representation of japanese education?!?!?!?

I struggle even now with just Americans school system, I feel like I'd completely fail in Japan.

It seems like most of the individuals interviewed here are quite young. I would be interested in hearing reactions from older Japanese people since I would expect that the responses would be considerably different. Great video nonetheless!

A little comment on tests most people miss: they do not reward brilliance. If you can only score max - say 10/10 - how do you show when a kid is a genius? In Finish (and Danish schools - where I work) - we do an individual evaluation of the kids in the youngest classes. If a kid reads Shakespear in 4th grade or explains quantum physics in 6th, they won't just get a "perfect" mark, they'll get noticed and challenged to become even better. Tests only punish those the system have failed to teach, and it doesn't even reward those who are naturally gifted...

20 HOURS A WEEK?!?! IVE DONE 24 HOURS THIS WEEK ALREADY! IVE GOTTA MOVE TO FINLAND!

Damn.. I feel as if even though Japan as a country is advanced, everyone there hates living. Careers seem the same as school with too much overtime and anyone who doesn't go to school deciding to take up a career not needing school is looked down upon

what happened in Japan also happened in Indonesia education system. it affects not only in school, but later in the workplace too. they afraid to speak up, tend to be not confident, inflexible, and just follow the status quo. it will be best if your next video will be about the workplace condition in Finland 👍

My girlfriend is Japanese (I'm living in Japan right now), and the other day, we discussed about our future of raising kids, I didn't really have a preference of whether it'd be in or out of Japan but without any biased suggestions she immediately said that it would be best to have the kids study outside of the Japanese education system. She said that it was a bad environment where competition is bad, but also that the social circles of the schools results in bullying especially if you're of mixed blood. Not to mention working in a Japanese company I also see what one was saying that the manners in schools also trickled down to work culture. The upper management would mostly give orders without really giving reasons as to why this has happened. Like my CEO would ask to increase elevator music to prevent company secrets from leaking out, only resulting in headaches for people and people talking even louder during the ride.

Many school systems across the world are generations behind when it comes to education. Luckily kids today are learning from many more sources than just their schools, especially in countries where schools are uninspiring. It's ok for a school day to be hard, or challenging, or even boring, but it must never be uninspiring...

I think it's all about culture. Finnish schools amplify the effectiveness of a culture that is inquisitive by nature and has no tight hierarchal structure. I think if the Finnish system was implemented in western countries like the UK, Denmark, France or even the US, I think it might work. But in asian culture, it's mostly similar to what we heard in this video and how the "relaxed education" failed. First of all, asian education (including informal education from parents since we were kids) is pretty much the teacher (or parent) tells us what to do, so there is not much critical thinking/rational thinking. What makes it worse is certain parties (teachers/headmasters/education boards) have KPI or targets to meet. If there were no tests, how would they show that the system they implemented has worked? They need these numbers to show to the boss they did their work. I was fortunate enough to go through a western and eastern education. I went to a British early primary school. Although it was just for a short period, the effects and the way the system teaches us to think got stuck in me. Although not as good as Finnish education, British education does teach you critical thinking and the most important thing is they don't spoon feed you with facts, instead they do experiments to investigate why something is the way it is. I guess this part was what stuck with me and pretty much defines the way I think. But after coming back to Asia (Malaysia) the education system was pretty much focused on memorising (at least when I was in school back then). It really didn't suit the way I think and I always think that the way I think is so different from everybody else. So, all throughout my primary and secondary and even undergraduate studies, I was pretty much average. Not bad, but not too great as well. I did do better in some subjects but mostly average. Only recently I found myself excelling in my Masters degree, since it's focus is on critical thinking and problem solving, something I'm very good at. So basically I think it's not entirely about the education system, it's about the culture of the people. Like the Finnish teacher said, they teach their kids to be Happy whereas in Asia we are taught education is to get you a good job. Finnish policy is for kids to be happy, good relations with family, society etc. and when you have these type of people graduating from your schools, they WILL make a better world. As compared to asian culture, education = better work = better money (generally). How are you gonna create a better world?

You should also interview Koreans about this if you aren't doing it yet :)

A "シャーペン" is not a "sharp pen" but a mechanical pencil :)

These types of interviews and viewpoints are very important. Well done guys really appreciate it.

The Japanese education system is terrible. I have students having nervous breakdowns and suffering mental illness because of long term pressure to perform and all for pointless scores that will get them into a university that is too slack and an unemployment system that is hopelessly out of balance with the needs of society and the people. Everyone, go to Finland! Having said that tho. Western education could benefit from the discipline they have here where as Japanese needs the creative thinking, critical thinking and freedom that other countries have.

damn, Kei's voice is so soothing when he's speaking japanese.

Being an Asian, I definitely can see the education system being ineffective in terms of getting students to think for themselves because it's how we are brought up and raised, believing in the tradition education system paving the way to becoming successful

Hey, Finnish person here. Just wanted to clarify a couple of things from the Michael Moore documentary. 1. The "no homework" only applies to elementary school (primary school) AND what it actually meant was that there is very little homework in Finland compared to a lot of other countries. Maybe 10-20 minutes, tops. (The minister in the clip chose her words poorly, or it was cut out.) 2.There ARE tests in Finnish schools. If you watch the full documentary, it shows that it means there are no standardized tests like they have in the US. But students do have tests also in elementary schools, usually one test in every subject per semester (term). Only at the end of high school (upper secondary school) do the students have a standardized test called the matriculation examination. PISA tests don’t affect the students’ grade (and only some schools get chosen for that yearly, I think it's random). 3. When they said that the students don’t get grades it only meant elementary school (primary school) students. And by grades they mean the usual numerical grades that older students get, ranging from 4 to 10 (4 means fail). Elementary school students usually get report cards with some personal feedback and non-numerical grades. For example: Writing___________G (Good) Reading___________S(Satisfactory) Behaviour_________G Participation_______G Etc. Like I said, after elementary school students do get graded. By law they have to get numerical grades (at the latest) after the 7th grade. Usually they do give numerical grades in the 5th and 6th grades also, even though they are still in elementary school. Sorry for any grammatical errors.

I'm very glad I discovered this channel. Thank you for these insightful snapshots into life within another society. Definitely gives me something to think about.

There is homework in Finland.

Cramming for tests is a complete waste of time for the education system in general, and that's what the Japanese School System seems to excel at. As a society you have to look at what exactly do you want to teach kids growing up, memorize some obscure detail that has no relevance to their lives outside test scores and admittance to a big name university, or actually internalizing something that'll help them figure out how they want to live their life as an adult. Elementary school is good for basic knowledge of things you wouldn't learn at home, but pushing it to the degree that it hurts kids ability to learn socializing and creative expression isn't good. One thing about Japanese school system, and some other places in Asia and elsewhere is how there's plenty of gender segregated schools, which further drives apart the men and women of the country when they're not socializing together and have little skills for that as adults. That's partly why Japan's long hours of school/juku/work is perhaps the worst thing I see about Japanese society as a whole. Coming from Finland it seems so out of whack, even if I went through my elementary education over 20 years ago when it was more about cramming and tests scores than today. That said, changing these systems for Japan or any other country is not an easy task since they are such complicated web of different parts. Ultimately people want their kids to have the best chance at success, so they will push cram schools to get into big universities, and I think that's what Japan would need to address first. The parents, teachers, universities and government have to have a unified view of how to improve things, otherwise they'll just circumvent any modicum of change that's made to the system because doing that serves them over others. Unfortunately I think another thing that Japan tends to excel at is making modicums of change that ultimately do not have the desired effect but end just another thing that's done because some higher up at some point thought it was a good idea for some reason.

Nice Video Asian Boss! My opinion on East Asian education is that it's very nationalistic and I fear that past history hasn't taught these countries yet. No country is perfect, every country has some bad history. I have talked to others and found out that many of Japan's actions during WW2 are omitted from textbooks such as the rape of Nanking or Unit 731. The point isn't to shame a country for that, as I mentioned before everyone has dark pasts. The thing is, not admitting to these things have stirred up tensions again and it only makes it easier for things like this to happen again. There's another KZfaqr named Solfa who did a experiment with South Korean, Chinese and Japanese University students. What happened was that when students were asked questions that related to figures of their respective countries, they were the only ones with detailed explanations. The rest either had very little knowledge or none at all. I hope one day Asia is more united and we can stop the Disparity between different countries.

Japanese only tend to overlook childhood boredom and over-studying because as parents they want their child to have the absolute best future.. so they imagine, once the child graduates they can have all the "fun" and success! but of course once they graduate, the working world is just as strict, if not more so than education... so it's just an endless cycle of work hard, be the best. but that also doesn't mean they dont have time to have fun, it's just probably a little less than more relaxed countries.

like I keep saying the West is more relaxed, where Asia is strict, because Asia lives for society where the West is about individualism.

The Finnish school system isn't quite as relaxed as Michael Moore makes it appear to be. Kids get grades and homework and those who get best grades work hard. But we have no cram schools, the school days are pretty short and the teachers (at least most of them) are good. With love from Finland!!

Why did you get 90 not 100 😐 if I got 90 i will party for a month non stop

Interesting video! I would like to specify the no-homework-thing though: you can have homework to do when you are younger, say 1st (7 years old) to 4th grade (10 years old), but they are only small tasks than can be done right after school and then you have plenty of time to play. When you get older the tasks get harder and you get more homework, but you still don't have to spend more than two hours of doing your homework. In high school (16-19 years old) we have test weeks at the end of every term, and then you need to read many books for different subjects, since almost every subject has at least one textbook to read. Also at the end of high school we have a huge test, the matriculation exam, on subjects we choose (a minimum of six) and that is kind of our SATs, because universities will often require the results of your exam to get into that university. Maybe one reason why the Finnish system as it is wouldn't work in many Asian countries is that there are much more people in the Asian countries than in Finland. We have only 5 million people in the whole country, so it is easier to separate the great from the other students without testing them so much. But in Asia, where many cities in Asian countries have five times more people than we do, the testing of students would be required to separate the best students from others.

Great work in getting so authentic and honest perspectives!

Really interresting ! Thanks for all of your work !

Recently moved to japan, never been more stressed about school, homework, and grades in my entire life.

Finland, you are amazing!

Thank you for doing this video. This topic is just so important. Hearing opinions from Japanese people brings just more insight into the education of this advanced and culturally-rich nation.

The sad thing is Australia is gradually moving towards a similar system to Japan - standardised testing is now nation wide. We need to be moving the other way, but our leaders are always 30-40 years behind in their understanding.

very informative video..after watching this I realised I never studied hard in my whole school life.but it was full of fun. thanks Asian boss..a lot more informative videos expecting from you

Who wants to hear parents responses about that documentary and the responses from these youngsters in this video?

So sad,here in México you don't learn in the right way,the system doesn't teach you usefull stuff sometimes but also they want you to remember a entire book that you will forget with the time,sometimes they don't care how the students feel but also they are always watching out if you take out a sweater to get away the cold if the teachers see you with a sweater they will take it away because is not ok with the uniform. there are worse experiences in school obviously but srsly the system have to change (sorry for my bad english if i have an error)

I had a student and teacher experiences in Japan. And yes, at some point Japan need to change their education system and culture. I get stressed as a student because my teacher cannot help me if I have a question about things that I don’t understand. And they don’t want you to ask question. As a teacher, the school expect unnecessary perfection from their students, which drives both parties crazy. All their study book is only about memorizing and when they bumped into a different situation they cannot resolved it! Now, we are worrying about our child.

Very interesting! I've discussed similar things with my English students here. Thank you for this video!

After seeing this video, I'll go to my processors rooms and tell them their assignments are pure fucking bullshit. Wish me luck 😎☻

I am so happy to see Kei interviewing again :) Good work, Asian Boss, as usual!

Love your videos ! Please never stop!

Very interesting! The differences in the two education systems is astounding.

Thank you for making a video about "Education", because it's important and we should talk about it more.

I'd like to hear more on this topic; especially in regards to any alternative schools/curriculums of which people are aware.

HEY ASIAN BOSS I LUV YOUR VIDEOS

Very interesting to learn more about different cultures especially from those within that culture

Finnish here. When I was in the Finnish education system around 10 years ago, we did have quite a lot of homework. I asked my friends, who have kids if they still have homework and they still do, but not that much it seems. Another good point that wasn't shown on this video, but which is the Michael Moore's video is the fact that teachers get paid for preparing the classes and actually have time to do it properly. This has an effect on the quality too.

The mic quality in this video is AMAZING!

Asian education system in short : Don't be creative , don't follow monochromics methodology. Just work hard constantly so that other feels anxiety inside them 🤦🏼‍♀️

i have to agree that this is pretty much the norm with asian style education. respect the teacher and do not question them. My math teacher was like even if the answers right, if we didnt follow her method it was wrong. We are all taught to be yes people. I am an adult now but i am embaressed to acknowledge how severely lacking I am in critical thinking and forming opinions.

When I've spoken to friends who've either gone to Japan on exchange, or friend I've made in Japan, the general consensus I get is that the learning process is no more or less difficult than it is in the 'west'. I often hear that the entry requirements and tests are far more difficult than the material is once entry is gained. I've not been through it myself but it seems as though it creates undue and unnecessary stress for nearly everyone involved and that many students, at least in Japan, might be better served by trying to get the same education in another country. That way they can just focus on learning versus the crippling pressure of trying to do it at home. One would have to take secondary language classes seriously but even that, I am told, is less stressful than studying and testing to get into UoT. Certainly others will have a different perspective, and I am an outsider with 2nd hand 'experience'; however from all the stories shared with me it seems those who run the 'system' could stand to step back and relax a bit. The fact that many people who don't make it will never have another chance is also and incredible waste of potential and resources. The only true criticism I have of the system (and any system that does so) is training people to be 'salary-men' it seems many people are trained to work for someone else rather than truly think and grow for themselves. They are educated the expectation that they will work at 'huge corporation A' or 'national conglomerate b' rather than striving for something greater. They'll no doubt have a good life if they find the work is right for them, but they will never truly be their best self.

Nice video ! It's interesting to talk about this "without ranking" school system to the super-ranking japenese system Another video about what are the good points and bad points of japenese educational system according to japenese people could be interesting! Moreover, I would like to lean more about other asian education systems (like china, India), I think it could be a great subject, explain by Chinese, Indian ...!

Can you put english subtitles even when speaking in english?? I'm brazilian and i'm not really good at listen and the subtitles helps alot for me :/ btw good video.

That Michael Moore's video is misleading. We had homework, expect maybe in 1. & 2. grade, but not very much and often if you were quick enough you could do them during the class. My little brother and sister are still at school-age and they do have homework too. Also the number of school hours depends on your age. Minimum number of hours per week for 1 - 2. grade is 19 hours 3. grade is 22 hours 4. grade is 24 hours 5 - 6. grade is 25 hours 7 - 9. grade is 30 hours

Wait, so how do they judge the finnish system is the best if there's no scores saying so?

Japanese education system isn't suddenly failing. It has always been a failure. It is all based on memorization. After the test is done, most of it is lost and the value of memorized information without knowing how to use it is pretty useless anyway. The same system is in Korea and China. If the system worked, those countries would have a lot more high performing professionals and scientists

I’m Chinese and I feel that most of east Asia have the same education system

The core problem here is plain memorization I think. It's very hard to deal with people raised like that :/ . No matter how authoritative you are that guy would go "but that can't be right!" because what I told him to do goes against what he was taught before me. Explaining the inner common logic behind both ways of doing it (i.e. WHY he was taught like this, why it was universal idea and why new idea will work better) doesn't help much: "Well... your science thing is sound and all, but that's not how I was taught". Bottom line: just memorizing facts without understanding the core principles involved is just stupid.

I am from India and I remember some news news channel covered this topic of how Finland education system work. There are no fix book for a particular subject. They have references book like we have in college.

I work at a public middle school in Japan as an English assistant language teacher and while there's definitely some brilliant or good students, at least half of every class is mediocre or terrible. My school also had a problem with students not participating or taking notes in class, sleeping in class, and not doing their homework. The homework they have for English is very easy: copy the four to twelve new words and phrases from the book; look those words up from the back of the text book; and copy the text for the page for the next class if it's required and they're very short. Simple yet many don't do it. But I can understand why: until high school, their grades really don't matter. The bad at English, lazy, and wild kids just get passed through the school system until they can legally leave the school system of their own volition. They didn't mention that...

These are really outstanding well spoken liberal thinking Japanese, not representative of everyday Japanese people I think. So nice to hear well thought out, sensitive answers. There is hope. Thanks for these thought provoking interviews.

"No homework" Now that is a blatant lie

As I'm watching every video of ASIAN BOSS... I've just wondered how the people being interviewed could give such smart spontaneous answers without notes...

I'd like to see a wider range of people/ages interviewed. These kids haven't come full circle yet. As a parent of kids in the Japanese system there are negatives for sure, but the positives, compared to schools in my country are much greater. As an aside, subtitles were much better on this vid than I've seen on some.

i remember when studying in western countries, an A- is an Aisan F.....lol

second to last guy hit me in the feels

2:06 is such a good example of Asian school system. What's crazy is like, if a rule has a reason, fine, but everyone should be able to answer why that rule exists. And if it's an outrageous rule, there should be a means to get rules changed like a suggestion box or a committee to oversee these things. When upper management changes rules without representation from students/teachers in the classroom, it leads to even stranger rules that either don't address the problem or further exacerbate it.

Thanks Kei, very interesting

Imaging how i memorized one sentence by reading "our most important cash crop is Cotton" 10x without any slightest idea of what the actually is CASH CROP. We didn't ask cuz of scare of being scolded to keeping quiet in a class nor teacher were telling. It happens in India.

ok but his voice 2:01 is awesome!!!! omg i could listen to him all day. ^ω^

I think one thing that the Japanese education system needs to change is to shift away from the obsolete teacher-centred learning model towards student-centred learning. AFAIK Japan operates under the old model that a teacher is a font of all knowledge and students are expected to passively absorb that teacher's knowledge. Modern teaching sees the teacher more as a director of learning. Students should be doing more work than teachers in the classroom, after all, it's the students who are meant to be doing the learning. The teacher is there as a guide rather than a repository of knowledge. Simply feeding information to students isn't as effective in teaching as guiding students to discover that knowledge for themselves.

Education system of Asia is a mental gym. It train for mental toughness, to compete, to work under pressure, be on task, self sacrifices for greater good, resilience, endurance etc. Then hopefully they are mentally prepared for anything life throw at them.

Speaking of which, do other countries organize class sections in a certain order? Here, there's first section (top students and honors) and last section (students with lowest grades) and they're based on grades from the previous school year. So it's basically a ranking. I'm usually in the second to the last or middle sections. Lol

Are Japanese colleges the same way? Or does this only apply to high school and middle school?

This video gave me an insight of the Japanese education system which is very similar to the Indian education system.

excelent video. I´m an English teacher in Mexico and it's the same with our educational system.

It's fascinating!

The video they watch comes from "Where to invade", I just saw that video the day before yesterday.

It was stressful for me as well when I studied in Korea. Even though there were less exams than what I have here in the Philippines, it was stressful to go to academy after going to school, I also had to go to academy on vacation times to prepare for the new school semester exam, and the exams itself are stressful because you have the exam paper, but you also have the official exam marker. Anyways, I'm happy that I'm back here in tge Philippines. Even though sometimes internet or other services are uncomfortable and long, but I feel it's a better life here than in Korea. Fun fact, the place that we live in the Philippines is nicknamed the "California of Asia". So, yes, there are many foreigners not only in that place, but also at school.

catch me moving to finland, learning finish, and raising my future kids there

I really wonder if the use of progressive tense in the title is correct. I work in the Japanese education in Japan. The real test should be: "Can I survive in an ever changing environment?". Scores do not mean much. Performance does.

My father use to say ,' an ordinary teacher will only teach you his subject, but a great teacher will teach you many things not only from his subjects and will also lets you know what kind of abilities you have.

Unfortunately, that exactly what happening with education system in my country (Russia) lately. Because of recent system of exams, scholars have to memorize a lot of information that they will definitely forget just after leaving the exam room. If you didn't pass the exam - you can't go to ANY university and have to wait one more year for new exam. But, at the same time we haven't any school activity so children even can't to work with their stress there.

6 days a week in school in Japan and other systems others have 5 days of school like me I think in weekends kids tend to hangout with friends.

Hello, I am recently working on a research proposal that has to be about Japanese education system, since I am applying for a research scholarship for Japan. Your video was extremely helpful, but the facts that you mentioned, are they authentic?

In my country we dont have homework during weekends because its family day our class is only 7 hours. Monday to Friday class no weekends.

Wait.. school on Saturday used to be a thing?!😲

Can you please do the same but with Korean students? Thank you!

Well I live in France and there in middle school we finish at 17h (5pm) and in highschool at 6pm. Not every day, but it's possible. Plus the transports, plus activities (sport, music..), plus homework, exams etc. It really is an exhausting schoollife, to me at least, so I can relate with this video. Moreover, teachers can be really mean.. Like, I was traumatized in middle school by the languages and math teachers. I was really timid and stressed and the english/spanish teachers always liked to tell me "speak louder !! Why do your face turns red?? Go to the board so that everyone can see how stressed you are and how bad you do!" (Those are real thing they'd say to me..). One time, I was like 13, I peed on myself because the math teacher, really severe, was yelling on me, so I started balbutiating, which was infuriating all of those teachers, i felt so much fear that I had to pee and i couldn't control my body.... I knew so many humilations really 😔 I always had a fear of teacher, bc when I entered primary school, i had a physical abusive teacher that once gave a child, who did bad at a test, his own test to eat it (yes the sheet). It was still early 2000s at this time, now if a teacher'd do that he would be expelled inmediately though But well, it's still really traumatazing. You can feel free to share your own school life experience :) In my case, it's what we can call the "school of life" that taught me a lot of things !

you guys should find 1 in Malaysia and see the insight of how would Malaysian people see of their education in the Public Sector. You might find it interesting :)

um, heck no. I'm really happy ever since I left the Asian education system (Pakistani to be exact), but then again, I do think that that way of teaching made me learn a lot, probably the reason I excelled in American high school without ever needing to learn anything as I already knew everything from like 6th or 7th grade (While being in 11th grade in the US).

:c. This sometimes happens in other countries too... I live in Europe and when I'd get a 5 they'd ask why not a 6 (the highest, "extra" grade here, like the american A+). After some time I just realised I will never be good enough so I stopped trying hard and just settled on getting our equivalent of Bs. :|. And till this day I'm so critical of everything I do, even including non-academic activities as art, that it's hard to ever be happy about anything. It's never good enough.