My experiences were similar in some ways. My parents taught me to read and basic math before and during my early school years. I had some teachers that tailore

My experiences were similar in some ways. My parents taught me to read and basic math before and during my early school years. I had some teachers that tailored the curriculum for students like me (special projects, more advanced literature) and then others that kind of just left us to our own devices. In my case, I ended up doing all my schoolwork before lunch. The second half of the day I'd tinker around on the old Apple PCs my school had, read through the limited selection of interesting books in the school library or help some of my classmates with their schoolwork. Some teachers encouraged a few of us to tutor/mentor some of our peers, but I don't think it was encouraged enough. I can't directly relate that to where I am now, but I know overall it contributed to my ability to work/learn independently with minimal guidance. Might have also spurred my interest in problem solving and programming since I would be bored and become curious about how things worked around me. If there was a negative, it made me think much of school was really boring the first 8-9 years. When I had a teacher that was too busy to adjust their curriculum for more advanced students, I assumed this was how school would always be. I didn't want to have a negative opinion of the education system, but it was hard at the time to have a positive one. When I reached high school, I had to get out of the habit of thinking schoolwork (and homework) was some "busy work" chore I had to do in order to move onto the next grade. This was a bit harder in some courses than others--since I had to train myself to pay attention and actually take notes versus memorizing. Thankfully, I had some great high school teachers that helped me along the way. My high school education was overall a positive experience. Do I think I would have been better off being home schooled or in a private school with more attention? Hard to say. Perhaps better in some ways, but not in others. Always a trade off.