Some of the posts about "dreamer" children reminded me of this book:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Dreamers-Discoverers-and-Dynamos/Lucy-Jo-Palladino/e/9780345405739I found it to be tremendously insightful and thought-provoking. A real "aha!" book.
The author, a child psychologist, discusses the concept of divergent thinking which some 20% of humans have, and compares that to convergent thinking, which is the framework most schools are organized around.
My child is more of the "discoverer" type, and her descriptions of divergent thinkers in a convergent world described DS9 quite accurately. (I think our entire family is "divergent"!)