life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

I agree with you 100 percent, and the issues you mentioned are frustrating for teachers as well. In the States we have a requirement that all students have to pass Algebra I to graduate from high school. This requirement was instituted around the time I started teaching 11 years ago, and I remember the comments about it from my colleagues: "What equation do you need to use to flip this burger?" I'm all for academia and not dumbing down schools, but it is quite aggravating for both teachers and interested students to have other students in the classroom just taking up space (and I use the word "students" very loosely). My father is very knowledgable about history, but he said he would never teach it because he didn't want to deal with the "dumb thugs who don't like history". Sad.