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I think 12 year old kids need to be 12 year old kids and go to the same school and class with other 12 year old kids and be 12 years old. There’s a lot to be s

I think 12 year old kids need to be 12 year old kids and go to the same school and class with other 12 year old kids and be 12 years old. There’s a lot to be said for being ordinary, and living an ordinary life, even if you’re super smart. Our society worships the idea of being some sort of extraordinary super person, even if it’s not good for them.

garmaine 6y ago
I went to college early too. Not 12 years old, but young enough for it to be a social issue. This is child abuse, plain and simple.
- jki275 6y ago
  I went to college at 12. I enjoyed it, it wasn't abuse. This kid will be fine.
- balnaphone 6y ago
  I went to university at 14 to study math, no problems. I had a good experience. I wish I went earlier, because years are worth more when you're young. The university environment was far superior, both socially and academically.
GGfpc 6y ago
I understand the social aspect, but I don't see anything good stemming from forcing a kid to stay in a class learning about things he's way ahead of.
- catsareevil 6y ago
  Not wanting to kill himself because he's completely lost socially, bullied and a social outcast. Just skipping one grade can completely destroy you socially. I've experienced it to a lesser extent, and 15 years later I'm still broken mentally, I'm bipolar, I most likely have some sort of PTSD, I take 3 meds daily, and I have suicidal thoughts since I'm 6 or 7yo, and I'm 100% sure most of that wouldn't have happened if I had been just average in school and didn't skip any grades. I would literally give everything to go back in time and prevent my parents from allowing it. DON'T allow your kids to skip a grade, unless maybe if you're rich and can afford to pay for a good private school for gifted kids. Just DON'T.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    Bullying is a frequent and horrible experience at schools, but it also happens to many kids who don't skip a grade. Do you believe that skipping a grade increases the risk? It seems that, statistically, skipping a grade is a positive experience for gifted kids. (Sorry, can't find the link to research now.) I also skipped a grade, and I have no complaints. I spent less time in the pathological environment of the educational system, and still had the same credentials at job market. Maybe it matters which grade you skip. I think the strategic choice is the last grade in given school. So you don't end up as the only new kid in an existing class, but are simply one new kid among many.
TigeriusKirk 6y ago
I think it's an extreme position to believe even the most extraordinary should be forced into an ordinary life. I think that's much more harmful to those people than letting them be different in the ways that they actually are different. And it's a lasting harm, one that will linger with them their entire lives.
sunstone 6y ago
Exceptionally talented kids whether it be sports, music, math, chess etc. should go to normal schools and receive training relevant to their gift in a separate setting. Their schooling doesn't have to be an either or choice.
- colanderman 6y ago
  I agree, but unfortunately access to those programs is typically not free. The best an academically gifted public-school child can hope for is either the existence of a (free) after-school enrichment program run by a benevolent teacher, or to be bumped up a grade or two in their subject of talent (which typically only works in later grades, when students have more flexible schedules). My own experience as a public school child was following the latter course (bumped up two years in math in high school), but that was only an option because (a) I was in one of the best public schools in the state, and (b) my mother was herself a teacher, and could navigate the system to fight to open that option to me. But that only worked for one year – before that, it logistically wasn't an option (so teachers would just isolate me with a special workbook); after that, well, there were no higher-level math courses offered (so I just didn't take math and instead dicked around in the AV club room for an hour each day).
  - sunstone 6y ago
    Too bad it couldn't have been you and Walter Pitts in the library with the pencil.
- jdeibele 6y ago
  My daughters attended a local public program where students had to achieve at least 99% on certain tests. The program started out relatively central, then was moved further out. The year after my younger daughter left, the program was split into two, with elementary students as far east as it was possible to go and still be in the district and the middle schoolers as far south. The district would clearly like to kill the program. It used to be possible to get high school credit for the science classes and the district did away with that. The one opportunity that students have in some other local schools to advance is to do Compacted Math, where they do 7th and 8th Grade mathematics plus algebra in 2 years instead of the usual 3. Nowhere in the district is there an opportunity to go faster in English or anything else. What I would have liked for my daughters is to be able to go to local schools and still have some advanced classes. Their local middle school has 3 classes from one school, 4 from another, and another 4 from a 3rd school. There's 275 kids in a grade. Surely there could be 1 or 2 classes for the fast learners and extra help for some others? No way, that's tracking and the district refuses to do it.
colanderman 6y ago
I agree about the social aspects, but smart kids emphatically do not do well when mixed with academically average social peers. They get bored with the material, develop disdain for those who can't keep up with them (including teachers), and overall develop an unhealthy relationship with society and schooling itself. Better is to get said kids into programs with other smart kids their age, where they can be intellectually stimulated, but continue to develop normally socially. The younger the better; suddenly being tossed into such a program after being the smartest (and possibly most isolated) kid in the room for a decade doesn't bode well for one's psyche either. Wealthy families effectively have access to such programs via private schools, whose curriculum is often a year or two ahead of public schools. Good luck finding such a setup in a public school system, or even finding public school teachers who can provide adequate individual instruction of advanced students: the pay to retain such teachers isn't there. I don't know what the solution is, but I think it at least involves funding public school better.
- topkai22 6y ago
  Depending on how far out on the curve a kid is, there are options in many places. Gifted and talented programs exist in many if not most places. In multiple areas I’ve lived, the “local” (it might be over an hour away) university has offered some form of extremely talented youth program, although perhaps not at 12. For kids who are so smart that those programs aren’t enough, it often stops becoming a question of money and more just numbers- kids that are 1/100,000 level smart and live in an area where there are a million people, then the school system sees less than one of you per year/grade. There aren’t enough “peers” to get a full class together. I’m with you that GATE programs are beneficial and worth funding, but there will always be exceptions that a general program can’t cover and I can believe this kid is one of them.
  - colanderman 6y ago
    I agree re: the kid in TFA; college at 12 is absolutely an outlier. For my family the problem with gifted & talented programs was money. I did end up taking some courses at the local community college. But e.g. when the opportunity to participate in the Johns Hopkins CTY program came up, my parents couldn't afford it so I did not do so. (In fact in adulthood I ended up teaching at CTY for three years. It is absolutely a program I would have benefited from as a youth, but very much skewed toward children of wealthy parents. I distinctly remember one session I taught, how much trouble the one public school kid had fitting in. The kid who flew in on a private jet found more in common with his classmates.)
okprod 6y ago
My mom always used to say that average people are the most special people in the world. And that's why God made so many.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Your mom sounds like a really good mom.
boublepop 6y ago
Some people used to think that “woman needed to be woman” and “blacks needed to be blacks”. I would categorically argue that nothing, absolutely nothing good came out of that sort of thinking. Why do you care about his age? He’s a boy ready for uni, so let the boy attend uni. Perhaps if society cared a little less about organizing people neatly into boxes bases on product color, feature set and production age, it would be easier for those who come out ahead of their peers expeditions to live comfortably in it.

garmaine 6y ago

I went to college early too. Not 12 years old, but young enough for it to be a social issue. This is child abuse, plain and simple.

jki275 6y ago
I went to college at 12. I enjoyed it, it wasn't abuse. This kid will be fine.
balnaphone 6y ago
I went to university at 14 to study math, no problems. I had a good experience. I wish I went earlier, because years are worth more when you're young. The university environment was far superior, both socially and academically.

GGfpc 6y ago

I understand the social aspect, but I don't see anything good stemming from forcing a kid to stay in a class learning about things he's way ahead of.

catsareevil 6y ago
Not wanting to kill himself because he's completely lost socially, bullied and a social outcast. Just skipping one grade can completely destroy you socially. I've experienced it to a lesser extent, and 15 years later I'm still broken mentally, I'm bipolar, I most likely have some sort of PTSD, I take 3 meds daily, and I have suicidal thoughts since I'm 6 or 7yo, and I'm 100% sure most of that wouldn't have happened if I had been just average in school and didn't skip any grades. I would literally give everything to go back in time and prevent my parents from allowing it. DON'T allow your kids to skip a grade, unless maybe if you're rich and can afford to pay for a good private school for gifted kids. Just DON'T.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  Bullying is a frequent and horrible experience at schools, but it also happens to many kids who don't skip a grade. Do you believe that skipping a grade increases the risk? It seems that, statistically, skipping a grade is a positive experience for gifted kids. (Sorry, can't find the link to research now.) I also skipped a grade, and I have no complaints. I spent less time in the pathological environment of the educational system, and still had the same credentials at job market. Maybe it matters which grade you skip. I think the strategic choice is the last grade in given school. So you don't end up as the only new kid in an existing class, but are simply one new kid among many.

TigeriusKirk 6y ago

I think it's an extreme position to believe even the most extraordinary should be forced into an ordinary life. I think that's much more harmful to those people than letting them be different in the ways that they actually are different. And it's a lasting harm, one that will linger with them their entire lives.

sunstone 6y ago

Exceptionally talented kids whether it be sports, music, math, chess etc. should go to normal schools and receive training relevant to their gift in a separate setting. Their schooling doesn't have to be an either or choice.

colanderman 6y ago
I agree, but unfortunately access to those programs is typically not free. The best an academically gifted public-school child can hope for is either the existence of a (free) after-school enrichment program run by a benevolent teacher, or to be bumped up a grade or two in their subject of talent (which typically only works in later grades, when students have more flexible schedules). My own experience as a public school child was following the latter course (bumped up two years in math in high school), but that was only an option because (a) I was in one of the best public schools in the state, and (b) my mother was herself a teacher, and could navigate the system to fight to open that option to me. But that only worked for one year – before that, it logistically wasn't an option (so teachers would just isolate me with a special workbook); after that, well, there were no higher-level math courses offered (so I just didn't take math and instead dicked around in the AV club room for an hour each day).
- sunstone 6y ago
  Too bad it couldn't have been you and Walter Pitts in the library with the pencil.
jdeibele 6y ago
My daughters attended a local public program where students had to achieve at least 99% on certain tests. The program started out relatively central, then was moved further out. The year after my younger daughter left, the program was split into two, with elementary students as far east as it was possible to go and still be in the district and the middle schoolers as far south. The district would clearly like to kill the program. It used to be possible to get high school credit for the science classes and the district did away with that. The one opportunity that students have in some other local schools to advance is to do Compacted Math, where they do 7th and 8th Grade mathematics plus algebra in 2 years instead of the usual 3. Nowhere in the district is there an opportunity to go faster in English or anything else. What I would have liked for my daughters is to be able to go to local schools and still have some advanced classes. Their local middle school has 3 classes from one school, 4 from another, and another 4 from a 3rd school. There's 275 kids in a grade. Surely there could be 1 or 2 classes for the fast learners and extra help for some others? No way, that's tracking and the district refuses to do it.

colanderman 6y ago

I agree about the social aspects, but smart kids emphatically do not do well when mixed with academically average social peers. They get bored with the material, develop disdain for those who can't keep up with them (including teachers), and overall develop an unhealthy relationship with society and schooling itself. Better is to get said kids into programs with other smart kids their age, where they can be intellectually stimulated, but continue to develop normally socially. The younger the better; suddenly being tossed into such a program after being the smartest (and possibly most isolated) kid in the room for a decade doesn't bode well for one's psyche either. Wealthy families effectively have access to such programs via private schools, whose curriculum is often a year or two ahead of public schools. Good luck finding such a setup in a public school system, or even finding public school teachers who can provide adequate individual instruction of advanced students: the pay to retain such teachers isn't there. I don't know what the solution is, but I think it at least involves funding public school better.

topkai22 6y ago
Depending on how far out on the curve a kid is, there are options in many places. Gifted and talented programs exist in many if not most places. In multiple areas I’ve lived, the “local” (it might be over an hour away) university has offered some form of extremely talented youth program, although perhaps not at 12. For kids who are so smart that those programs aren’t enough, it often stops becoming a question of money and more just numbers- kids that are 1/100,000 level smart and live in an area where there are a million people, then the school system sees less than one of you per year/grade. There aren’t enough “peers” to get a full class together. I’m with you that GATE programs are beneficial and worth funding, but there will always be exceptions that a general program can’t cover and I can believe this kid is one of them.
- colanderman 6y ago
  I agree re: the kid in TFA; college at 12 is absolutely an outlier. For my family the problem with gifted & talented programs was money. I did end up taking some courses at the local community college. But e.g. when the opportunity to participate in the Johns Hopkins CTY program came up, my parents couldn't afford it so I did not do so. (In fact in adulthood I ended up teaching at CTY for three years. It is absolutely a program I would have benefited from as a youth, but very much skewed toward children of wealthy parents. I distinctly remember one session I taught, how much trouble the one public school kid had fitting in. The kid who flew in on a private jet found more in common with his classmates.)

okprod 6y ago

My mom always used to say that average people are the most special people in the world. And that's why God made so many.

phobosanomaly 6y ago
Your mom sounds like a really good mom.

boublepop 6y ago

Some people used to think that “woman needed to be woman” and “blacks needed to be blacks”. I would categorically argue that nothing, absolutely nothing good came out of that sort of thinking. Why do you care about his age? He’s a boy ready for uni, so let the boy attend uni. Perhaps if society cared a little less about organizing people neatly into boxes bases on product color, feature set and production age, it would be easier for those who come out ahead of their peers expeditions to live comfortably in it.