We judge and evaluate [a child] in a place where he has not been comfortable enough to engage in good conversations. In school, he has felt in need of repairs. I must always assume, with any child, that school is the source of whatever problems exist in school before looking elsewhere.
-Vivian Gussin Paley, from The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter: the Uses of Storytelling in the Classroom
Exactly. Apart from anything else, humans are born to be curious. It is our drive for knowledge and learning that makes us human in both the worst ways and in the best ways. Why would a child, this being with a thirst for knowledge refuse to learn anything. I think the problem might be that the school refuses to recognise what they learnt, because it isn’t on the test.