When I was in sixth grade my parents convinced my (private) school to allow me to join the ninth/tenth grader's Geometry class. Two problems developed: 1. The

When I was in sixth grade my parents convinced my (private) school to allow me to join the ninth/tenth grader's Geometry class. Two problems developed: 1. The material wasn't challenging; I didn't grasp what the point of "proving" a bunch of obvious stuff was, although I was willing to go through the motions. So I was an 11-year-old smart aleck in a room filled with 14 year olds who found me annoying (because, truthfully, I was super annoying at that age!). This contributed to: 2. The 14 year olds were super mean to me, AND they basically revolted against the teacher when I was in the classroom In the end the teacher was happy to just privately tutor me, which was kind of her, but I have to acknowledge that I was genuinely disruptive to her class. So I think there are real repercussions to allowing socially undeveloped kids into a classroom filled with kids at a very different (social) level. There might have been a different outcome if I'd been in a school with a larger pool of moderately-to-very-gifted-at-math kids. The next year my parents sent me to a school that had an agreement with the local university to send kids gifted at math to take university classes. The college kids were much more tolerant of me as a curiosity (and I was actually challenged, so I didn't spend my time annoying anyone, which probably helped, too).