How Did they Get so Smart?

I took my child to Kindergarten with a very smug feeling that this kid was on fire. He could read, write his name and phonetically write other words when so moved. He was doing simple math problems, addition and subtraction. I was certain that he had to be one of the smartest kids ever to enter Kindergarten. I was duped.

Friday, I was brought back into my son's classroom to see a project that he had worked on but couldn't bring home yet. It was a coloring sheet of Itsy Bitsy Spider with cotton webbing, & a plastic spider. The first part of the poem was printed on the page and the kids were to add "water spout" at the end. My son is left handed. He wrote the way he always writes. Some letters were upside down, but I could tell what it said. I was very pleased. Then I looked at the other kids' sheets and my mouth fell to the floor. These kids write like they are in 5th grade! I swear, each and every other sheet looked like the teacher had helped the kids. I asked my son if all his friends wrote the words themselves. He said yes. I asked his teacher the same question today and she confirmed that they had.

What gives? How in the world did these kids get so smart? I encouraged my son as a preschooler to try new things, but I never felt like I was pushing him. He did what he wanted to do. I would never have been allowed to drive him harder than he was willing to work. I'm sure most parents are this way. If a kid loves learning and asks for math worksheets, you print them. So how is it that we didn't get this 5 years ago? The kids in my youngest child's class are much more academically advanced than his brother's classmates were. Is it wrong to teach them and drive them, as many complain, when they are clearly capable of this level of achievement? How in the world did these kids get so smart?