Belle and Lori,
I don't know whether to feel better by commiserating or to feel worse since it is so universal.
It seems like a circular argument. Your child is desperate to learn and, like little sponges, they soak it up. Then they are told that they are different (different being inherently bad, as 'Neato said!) and that they should be like other kids. And even the teachers who are different because they share the same joy of learning are brow-beaten into place. I just get so frustrated!!!
The problem is that we don't have a school system that rewards a passion for learning. We reward test taking, rote memorizing, speed drills, filling in the little answer circles with little or no understanding in order to get a good grade, and doing the least amount of work in order to get by.
Anything that complicates those objectives is seriously frowned on. (be it a kid who asks too many questions or a teacher that goes above and beyond) Maybe if we valued education more in this country so that we paid all of our teachers more (and rewarded them for putting in more effort... which is not the same as rewards for performance) and had people competing to get jobs as teachers, then we wouldn't have to choose between Kriston's two poisons. We wouldn't have to choose between letting our kid's mind grow at their speed and being labeled 'that weird kid who knows too much'.
Bella, your post makes me think that the problem is not with an individual teacher or school district... but with how we value education in general. If the teachers are told to do the least amount of work to get by (through low pay, not enough respect from the community, or for fear of making the other teachers look bad), aren't we just telling our students that they aren't worth the effort. Or maybe, more precisely, we are subconsciously telling them that learning isn't worth the effort.
