The scary thing is that many kids his age feel the same way...and they will be the "leaders" of tomorrow. Parents and public school teachers have filled their heads with so much feel-good-about-yourself fluff without the real substance of education.
Yep, I used to tutor kids in math to help them get ready for their SATs. A lot of them had had algebra in high school but weren't familiar with the commutative, associative and distributive laws. Consequently, they couldn't solve the simplest of problems. And many didn't want to learn, either.
They told me that they had been taught from the first grade onward that there were no right or wrong answers, and that everybody's approach to problem solving was equally valid. So why learn some stupid "laws?"
It's pitiful.