Your response neatly encompasses everything I disklike about academia. It's easier for the institution to bucket everyone into a group and disregard the individual, so that's what inevitably happens.
Not sure you are projecting a little bit here, what I do and how I do it is very untypical for academia (I teach at an art university, so it just counts to give people skills not to teach them some fixed curriculum), I also get the chance to do one on one teaching sessions where students will profit because I can do things at their level. Also we don't have tests and students are free to choose their courses.
Given that environment if someone comes to "introduction into analog sound synthesis" I can expect them to want to hear just that (or they need the credits). If people don't come to learn, I will not force them. They are grown ups, it is their decision if they want to learn.
Please also consider that unless you have experience in teaching groups you might have a rose tinted view of what an instructor can practically achieve. If you have a group of 20 people with 10 of those having no clue what you are talking about, 2 that are very advanced and the rest with mixed levels inbetween you must find a way of teaching the 10 that have no clue while also not boring the 2 who are more advanced. This can be a hard problem to solve in a good way as you cannot split yourself. If your group is bigger it gets harder even (and at some point you have to stop worrying).
I am totally for people being able to skip classes where they can demonstrate they already know everything thought in it. But practically it might be a lot of work for anybody working at university to create such an test for e.g. just one person. From the perspective of a student it all looks a lot simpler than it might be. For example even if someone could test a student to make sure they are not sending them into a hail mary be letting them skip fundamentals, maybe that someone has so many other tasks on their shelve that even if they wanted they cannot do that?
Also: for every student where this might make sense you will get 3 or 4 that really overestimate themselves with a nearly narcissistic inability of judging their own ability. You know, the type that would like to construct the equivalent of an iPhone in circuit form while not being able to explain ohms law.
> Also: for every student where this might make sense you will get 3 or 4 that really overestimate themselves with a nearly narcissistic inability of judging their own ability. You know, the type that would like to construct the equivalent of an iPhone in circuit form while not being able to explain ohms law.
But of course they could. And indeed, considering them narcissists is what many hate about the academia. Maybe they'd be better off taking a less linear path. Sure, in the context of the academia skipping classes is not justified and there's no problem with anything you're doing. But when one is frustrated with schooling, the first instinct is often to try to go faster. Quitting school is supposed to be a very bad thing, that's the one acceptable way to do something different.
For the most part I had the nicest and most accommodating teachers, had no problem with them, they had no problem with myself, can't blame them for anything. But I do strongly dislike the nearly universal borderline religious belief in traditional schooling being the right way. It's okay to not know some thing and not want to know them.
Well instead you could get one-to-one tuition sensitive to and tailored for your unique strengths, brought by the very best in the field. That would be pretty resource-intensive, but maybe you are worth it. But now look at from the providers' perspective: they can only afford to do this for a small fraction of the students that will think themselves deserving of it. What approach will let your special gifts shine through all the competing candidates?
