Quantum, the question that springs to mind, though, is what about mastery-learners in that kind of system?
This was a long-standing disagreement between my mom (an EC master teacher) and myself, incidentally. She thought that spiraling pedagogy was vastly superior for most students, and that therefore, mastery learners needed to 'adapt' to it rather than being accommodated.
I disagree based on my own experiences, my DH's, and on my DD. She can "touch" on a subject a couple of times before she tunes it out completely. So you'd better do it right and do it THOROUGHLY when you mention it. No half-truths, no skating on the hard parts.
That is an interesting question. I am not qualified to answer as I don't have your specific child and had not dealt with those particular frustrations. I do tend to beat (not literally) the attitude out of DS and repeatedly emphasize that he must take and adapt to the world as it is and not as he prefers it to be. I also occasionally remind him that he is not THAT smart and he is simply not ready to learn everthing about a given topic, which will be cover in more depth when . . . However, I am not sure that he qualifies as a mastery-learner. He is impatient and practical and all about speed-learning and picking up what he needs at the moment and touching on all manners of interesting facts/ideas.
For what it's worth, I do disagree with the degree of spiraling in current education - it's way too much! However, some spiraling is necessary. For example, it wouldn't be practical to hold off on basic long division until you cover repeating/terminating decimals in pre-algebra or division of complex polynomials in algebra. Similar, I would not hold off on basic solids geometry until you are able to comprehend analytical geometry in a calculus course. That knowledge can be useful as a practical matter earlier in life.
