This kind of hits home because I a) live in Calgary and b) was in a 'gifted' school program for a year or so (at public school). I also graduated early. Perso

This kind of hits home because I a) live in Calgary and b) was in a 'gifted' school program for a year or so (at public school). I also graduated early. Personally, I'm against the idea of segregated classrooms. In our 'gifted' program, we did get to do some cool things. We assembled a small robot (this was in the mid 1990's when that was just becoming a 'thing'), used computers, and did other 'gifted' things. But the problem was, we just saw it as a way to get out of doing normal homework (we'd still write tests in the classroom with the 'normal' kids), and eventually still got bored with it because the teachers didn't really have a well defined curriculum to teach. In the end, I not only went back to regular classes, but never did any 'advanced' classes again. And the truth was, those 'gifted' classes never really taught us anything that a bit of time in the computer lab or a science project (both of which were part of the 'regular' curriculum) couldn't. I also made some poor life decisions (some good ones too, like playing sports, starting hobbies and making poor decisions/having fun), and today I'm quite happily adjusted, married, in University as an older student, albeit with kinda shitty job prospects in Canada. And about the article, I'd also surmise that many of those 'gifted' kids may have some sort of mental health issues. Sometimes the two go hand-in-hand. And social conditioning is important. Also, the regular school system in Canada is much better than most people realize. As part of the 'regular' school system, I learned French (immersion from kindergarten), learned basic computer programming (in 9th grade, still in the 1990's!), we did all sorts of cool science projects (which I hope my kids will still be able to do), used power tools in shop class, got plenty of computer lab time (much of which was spent playing multi-player games over the network of Apple IIs whilst ignoring the teacher), played countless sports, got to learn how to ski (which otherwise my family could have never afforded, and today I do a lot of), and band class was forced on everyone which was nice because even the bullies had to bear the embarrassment of being terrible at playing an instrument (actually everyone got quite good in the end). Assuming the public school system hasn't got worse, I definitely plan on sending my children there. Anyhow, just some random thoughts on the matter - I believe in a strong system for everyone, if someone is a little ahead, maybe they can pick up a hobby, or use that time to learn a sport. The 'regular' system was quite good, the 'gifted' program was a bad afterthought, and making friends with 'normal' kids was definitely good for my mental health and general happiness.