The job of teaching done well is incomparable. I've had a good teacher, here and there. I've had some incredibly bad teachers, too. And the mediocre teachers, who are somewhat lost, overworked, and harassed by the principal, parents and the kids, usually didn't cause any real hardships for an autodidact. It was only in high school that I met teachers who "phoned it in". I think something happened in the profession, a great wave of change. My mother's stories of her career, and her grandmother's, are very different from today's experience. Charter schools, privatizing, all have chopped the foundations out from under universal education.
But it is a rare teacher, indeed, who does NOT enforce conformity, in the mistaken belief that this will help the student navigate life. Conformity is the culture of the USA. For those that do not fit into the prevailing culture, conformity is not an option. Creative people don't fit, nor do the disabled, the immigrant, etc. These strangers have to blast through the existing structures (or abandon the surrounding society) to make their own niches. Or, alternatively, they can lop off parts of their gifts (or their dreams).
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