I recently saw some stuff online that made me realize something, the Education system is like a series of Role Playing Game sessions. The stricter the setup the more people like to try pulling away. When education is tight and strict in its structure, you see more of those learning try pulling away or just outright ignoring things because they've realized that no matter what they do the lesson plan is going to be the same regardless of what else is going on. In tabletop RPG when the one running the game railroad's the campaign you get players that have the sort of responses of the children in overly strict education. Occasionally, in both, you'll get someone who knows how these sorts of instructors and game/dungeon masters work and knows just how to game the system to best the major challenges with little to no effort.

But if the one running the game or educationally instructing is able to just let those they're working with do things their own way and just drops some hints about what needs to be done you will find more of those being instructed or playing in the campaign willingly railroading themselves. Yeah, they might go a bit of script but permitting your participants to do things their way at their own pace has been proven to be far more effective than forcing them down a path before they have a chance to even examine or think about other options.