The best teacher I had was a middle school math teacher who realized that my problem was not a lack of understanding, and that expecting discipline from a 12 year old boy was folly. She knew that my boredom was turning me in a distraction for the other boys in the class. Her solution was brilliant: she taught me material beyond what we were learning, and let me have at it. I will never forget learning the square root algorithm from her, because it kept me occupied for weeks (my notebooks are filled with pages where I computed square roots of various numbers in various bases).

Sadly, she was a rare exception, not even remotely approaching the norm. Most of my math teachers said that I should prove my talent by doing my homework, and told me that getting perfect marks on exams or otherwise demonstrating a well-developed understanding of the material was irrelevant if my homework was not being done. My teachers were vehemently opposed to the idea of grades reflecting aptitude; it was unfair to students who needed to do their homework to understand the material, and it would be equally unfair to give one student more interesting homework instead of the standard "busy work." If a bored student cuts class, and thus refrains from distracting other students, that is not acceptable either: attendance is part of the grade and to be fair to everyone no exceptions can be made. The only acceptable solution to a student who distracts others is compliance -- the student must be forced to obey and just be like everyone else.

I only barely got through the school system, despite having standardized math, reading, and writing scores of "PHS" -- post high-school. I was once forced to attend summer school because of an "F" I received in an English class, where the teacher basically said that he thought I deserved to be there as punishment (but ultimately allowed me to skip his class to attend a summer science program, but only as long as I wrote a pair of $n page essays). I was once threatened with being transferred to a high school with a violence problem if I did not start following orders.

So despite the fact that I come from a long line of teachers, I have difficulty believing that most teachers want to encourage creativity or curiosity among their students. In my experience, teachers want to encourage compliance, and only accept creativity when it leads to specific results and behavior. Curiosity seems to only be permissible after all instructions have been executed, and the teacher is free to give such a long list of instructions to follow that no compliant student could have time for creativity.

I went to a few private schools (K-8, K-12) staffed with teachers like that, when I was younger.

What I described above is my experience with most of my teachers during my K-12 education. In 5 out of the 7 schools I attended almost all teachers were horrible. But so is the whole education system, and I think the bad teachers are just the byproduct of it.

If you can explain why is it the way I described it, I'm listening.