Just getting around to reading this. Your experience was pretty much our experience last year. Yes, as others have said, the situation is not sustainable and will only get worse as your child continues to pull away from the others academically. If you have some time (meaning your child is not miserable at the moment) you can start exploring the various options.
Personally, I started with what others have done here...."the teacher has other students", "we need to learn patience", etc. But at some point, my son just stopped working. He refused to do any more math work. I told him that it was ok not to do it but he would have to experience whatever consequences his teacher would have for him. He said, "I don't care". (My DS is pretty easy going, but once he's hit that refusal wall, he is rather ballsy. I remember he said, "What is she going to do? Throw me out of class? And then what? Make me write things down?) Then I had an aha parenting moment and realized that I should absolutely support my son's civil disobedience. He was quietly but powerfully saying, this is not appropriate. And of course he was right. Other children at the other end of the spectrum get what is appropriate - why shouldn't he? Or at least something a little more appropriate. Thus began our advocacy saga.
Personally, I've had a huge change in attitude in what school is "supposed" to be about. (Mind you, I've worked in schools for several years, so I'm coming at this with professional eyes too.) The system has pretty much been set up from the start to shape students a la assembly line. If you don't fit in, you get tossed to the side or you just quietly get jammed through the line. That's not what I want for my children (or anyone's child actually). I would love to homeschool 100%, but DS wants to spend time with his friends some of the day, so we partially homeschool. I don't think schools are set up for ANY child outside the norm.
Thinking globally, many have observed a widespread pattern in which children are seemingly being taught to be mere cogs in a wheel, to place acquiescence to the system over consideration of one's own aptitudes and appetites for knowledge and the benefits which they as accomplished individuals may uniquely provide to society in the future. Some have said the pressure toward getting children to function in a uniform fashion is related to the large national debt and projections of the USA declining in the world economy while other countries become more powerful. Some who have come to the USA from other lands have shared stories of seeing changes in the USA which may signal we are on the path to becoming the type of system they have escaped from or left behind.
Indigo, I was so struck with your comments. I live in a very diverse community - like top 20 diverse communities in the US. Families are literally from every part of the globe. So many immigrant families cannot believe the extremely poor quality of public schools in the US. They also can't believe how much squelching of talent they see in the schools. So many of these parents remark that they came to the US for the schools (among other reasons of course), they came here for the individuality and creativity that they thought could be fostered in their children. But they find no evidence of it. They find the testing craze and the stifling of their children. And some of these families go back to their original countries! It's nuts!
Anyway, my solution to the inappropriate HW that DS is still given sometimes: I tell him that he has to do something. He can substitute the HW with something else more appropriate if he likes. (Mind you, we homeschool most subjects, so this doesn't happen often.) I think telling him that he should just go along with things when it's not right (being given work that is 3 years below him), is NOT RIGHT. He deserves to be educated appropriately - not every minute of every day. But most of the time.
