It was an amazing moment in school when it suddenly clicked that teachers are just otherwise normal people (about as normal as you can get), and that school was an opportunity to learn things that will be useful in later life: maths and learning how to learn. After that, my grades shot through the roof. I understood that teachers just wanted to be able to teach and have you learn. If you did well in their class and they felt important enough (challenging the material and asking questions that only they as a teacher could provide answers or clues towards) the option became available to either study something else, or leave the class entirely. Having said that, not all students are created equal. It wasn't until my final year that I came to this realisation, and even then, it took my observing another student just skip class to study for a different test, before I began to form these ideas. I don't doubt that many students missed it entirely until they had started university. Ultimately it becomes a question of do we drag children kicking and screaming to the dinner table until they understand that nutrition (knowledge and education) is important? Or do we allow children to set their own course, allow them the option of eating nothing but candy, only to realise later that they fucked themselves in their youth. Not the best analogy, but it shall suffice at this hour.