Teaching Outside my Box

I have had the chance to teach at a private Christian High School in town and it has been an interesting experience. Some of the limitations and expectations for the instructors are definitely outside my "comfort zone" as a university professor used to the academic freedoms legally afforded at this level of higher education. Other aspects of it have been helpful to my university teaching because it gives me a limited insight into the college preparatory program.
My classroom is small (given my usual university parameters of about 60-100 students) but the exposure has been interesting. Even in this small group of students there is quite a variation of abilities. Some are thinking and writing at the level of my University graduate students. Others of them are fairly typical high school students with varied abilities. All of them are expected to be polite, well-behaved, respectful to authority, and reasonably diligent as students. Some of these expectations are based on the desires of "good Christian families" and other of the expectations are based on the "good character" expected of students before they become part of this school. I am not completely settled about how to think of this. Sometimes I miss the "fire in the belly" approach I get from some of my university students--they, too, are often missing this desire and drive.
What is the balance between submission/discipleship where one subjects oneself to the demands of the area of study (the discipline) and the desire to rethink the assumptions--to challenge the ideas presented?  Learning, at the lower levels (both younger ages and early learning), seems to demand some degree of submission to the discipline in order to learn the ideas and principles. Learning at the upper levels seems to demand both submission and questioning/resistance. Even the attempt to integrate ideas from among several areas is still a challenge to the limited boundaries of a field.
Learning is not for the faint of heart.