I had read about unschooling, but hadn't heard this about the rote work, etc.
I think it's interesting because in school, I absolutely refused to do homework unless it was absolutely necessary to pass the class. Instead of being a straight-A student, I often got B's and C's, and even an F a couple times.
I was also in a special 'gifted' class in elementary school that took me out of regular classes once a week and taught us other things. (One of which was programming, which is where my career went!) We still had to do all our normal class work, and since we missed 20% of the in-class lectures, that meant a lot of catch-up each week, which was a lot more interesting than sitting in class and listening.
I have a feeling, after reading your post, that those things are related to my continued love of learning. I also have a feeling that unschooling would have been even better for me, but at least I didn't get burnt out young.
I think it's interesting because in school, I absolutely refused to do homework unless it was absolutely necessary to pass the class. Instead of being a straight-A student, I often got B's and C's, and even an F a couple times.
I was also in a special 'gifted' class in elementary school that took me out of regular classes once a week and taught us other things. (One of which was programming, which is where my career went!) We still had to do all our normal class work, and since we missed 20% of the in-class lectures, that meant a lot of catch-up each week, which was a lot more interesting than sitting in class and listening.
I have a feeling, after reading your post, that those things are related to my continued love of learning. I also have a feeling that unschooling would have been even better for me, but at least I didn't get burnt out young.