When the startled mother approached the teacher, asking her to clear up this obvious misunderstanding, she was berated for "pushing" her child. What she did at home was her business, of course, but such behavior certainly wasn't going to be encouraged at school. There were children of many different levels in the class, she was told, and it was important that they "all catch up to each other in school."
It's tempting to dismiss this as an aberration, an isolated problem with one particular, crackpot teacher. I know a number of teachers who will be as appalled by this as I was. However, this is not the first time I've run into the attitude that the purpose of kindergarten is to get all children on the same level. In practice that philosophy is at least as much about holding some children back as it is about bringing others forward, resulting in a bland mediocrity.
I couldn't say that our own children were actively discouraged from learning, except insofar as school required so much of their time and gave so little in return. Certainly they were not encouraged to learn very much. One of our daughters, thanks to her avid curiosity and an older sibling, entered kindergarten knowing as much about mathematics as most children several grades above her. When she left public school at the end of second grade, she had gained almost nothing mathematically—and this in a decent, suburban school with good, caring teachers. Her mathematical ability meant only that her teachers had more time to spare for the rest of the class; encouraging her to learn material beyond her grade level was not even considered. Another teacher, learning of her plight, sneaked her an unused workbook from a higher grade, which fed her happy hunger for a while—but only at home.
Not that this is a new problem. In my elementary school days, nearly half a century ago, school officials explicitly told parents not to interfere in any way with their children's schooling. Education was to be left to the professionals, never attempted at home, leaving children all the more at the mercy of whatever their schools chose to teach—or not teach.
If you believe John Taylor Gatto, the problem is older still, and not accidental, but a deliberate attempt since the late 19th century to breed mediocrity through the schools. Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Read makes his conspiracy theories sound almost reasonable.
