Rebel Without a Cause

Theo is six, and he is having his first attack of rebelliousness. Some days he has a sad look in his eyes. Some days a sullen expression like a bored preteen. My innocent angel with the bright eyes looks different. He has gotten in trouble twice this last week, and yesterday his teacher came to talk to me again. Academically he continues to do well, she said, but he is trying too hard to fit in. Oh, my heart started to break. It is a battle that never ends. I guess Jonathan and I were lucky we learned we were weird early.
Each night I have spoken to him, trying to implant a reassuring voice in his head. Be yourself. Everyone is different, unique. You are, too. If you are just yourself, people will flock to you.
But he is obsessed. With making his friend Omeed laugh. With making his two best friends like him. I mean really like him.
So he is acting out. Saying he wants to escape from school. Putting his feet up on the table. Laughing loudly.
None of it is so bad. It is more an attitude.
But I worry. I worry that his curious mind is not fully engaged in school. It is not that he is brilliant. But he is so curious, and can take in almost any story or factoid. He delights in them. It is not enough to hear that an alligator has webbed feet and scales. He knows that. He likes learning that when you see you receive the image upside down and then your brain flips it right side up. I'm sure being a kindergarten teacher is hard. You have children of every level. Some can read, some can't. Some can follow a story. Some can't. I feel that my boys imagination and curiousity are not being harnessed. I know it is my job, too. And I try. Each night he pores over The Way We Work by David McCauley, looking at elaborate illustrations of the heart, the circulation system, the eye, the ear. He can't read it, but it sets him afire.
I feel he is not being set afire at school. And all his energy is going to making his friends laugh, to fitting in, to experimenting socially, like he is trying on new clothes. That is important, too. But what can I do to keep his curiousity alive?
Advice?
Anyone?
In the meantime I make him sing: "All the Freaky People Make the Beauty of the World."