[Whit]

     Heh, this thread makes me think of my ten year old boy. He's continuously had problems in school nearly rivaling my own from back then. Part of it is how he's being raised. (by me)
     For instance, he's allowed to question anything he's told to do after he does it. The reasoning is that I want him to know why he's being forced to do whatever it is. Often this leads to him not having to be told again, he understands why it needs to be done and does it. My personal rule is that "Because I told you too" is never good enough. I'm raising him to be an adult, not a really big child, so I believe encouraging free thought and understanding in him is important.
     The school system, needless to say, doesn't have the same priorities. His most notable problem recently included the teachers telling him what his responsibilities to the class were and him saying, "Teaching may be your responsibility, it's your job, but I never agreed to learn anything, so it's not my responsibility." Sigh, I love that kid. Of course I said the same thing to a teacher when I was slightly younger than him.
     Part of the problem is that a lot of teachers don't know why they are teaching things. I had a science class in Jr. High where we had to identify 50 different types of rocks. I asked the teacher what possible reason there could be for that, and she actually said, "Maybe when you grow up you'll want to build a house and want to know what kind of rock it's on." I arched an eyebrow at her and punched a number of holes in that idea. Now had she said, it gives you experience applying the scientific method in complex circumstances I'd have said, "Ooooh! Ok."
     So far, I've been able to keep the kid focused on doing his school work because I know where he's coming from. I just wish schools would support individuality rather than just pushing the three R's Repetition, redundancy, and repetition. Some teachers are cool though, they just have to fight the system as well as deal with dumbass students.