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Acceleration (universal or subject-specific grade skipping) can help with this. It challenges the gifted student appropriately while still allowing them to soci

Acceleration (universal or subject-specific grade skipping) can help with this. It challenges the gifted student appropriately while still allowing them to socialize with regular people. Naively it might seem that this could lead to bullying, but from what I read it tends to work really well. The older students aren't threatened by the prodigy.

macintux 3y ago
I took geometry as a freshman in a class full of juniors and seniors. The bullying was frequent, and the teacher strategically refused to show up on time so I had to either wait around outside the classroom like a coward or go in and be hazed.
- garbagecoder 3y ago
  I skipped mid 3rd to mid 4th. I wasn't really that much younger, but it was not good. It wasn't just that they were bigger or whatever, but at that age what you're going through is still pretty tightly coupled to your age. I didn't feel normalish until well into high school. I don't recommend it. I recommend letting kids accelerate, but right now the consensus seems to be accelerate most people who need it at 9th grade, not 7th, and definitely not before. As with most of these things the consensus goes back and forth, but that squares with my lived experience.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I wonder if skipping in the middle of the year was particularly bad. The recommendation you cite conflicts with Miraca Gross's recommendation for exceptionally gifted students, but they will be a minority of those who can grade skip.
- pokerface_86 3y ago
  i took algebra 2/trig as a freshman in a class full of juniors and became friends with pretty much all of them. i was a pakistani dude at a title 1 school. it just depends on the class
lmm 3y ago
And in fact bullying is significantly worse on average when students are not allowed to be accelerated.
8note 3y ago
Does it? The kid is always going to be off from their age group, which is not regular people
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  As adults we're constantly interacting with people younger and older than us by multiple decades. Even as college students we're in classes with those younger or older by multiple years. The modern age-cohort school system is the historic exception. Prior to it single-room schools were common. And prior to those apprenticeships in which some of the apprentices or journeymen were older and younger were common. Heck, in my neighborhood kids were older and younger. I remember getting advice from an older neighborhood kid when beginning elementary school (the part I remember is that lunch boxes weren't cool, and to use a paper bag instead). You're right in that being the single odd-ball is unusual. But I think it would be better to just make partial and full grade skips more common than to make them rarer.

macintux 3y ago

I took geometry as a freshman in a class full of juniors and seniors. The bullying was frequent, and the teacher strategically refused to show up on time so I had to either wait around outside the classroom like a coward or go in and be hazed.

garbagecoder 3y ago
I skipped mid 3rd to mid 4th. I wasn't really that much younger, but it was not good. It wasn't just that they were bigger or whatever, but at that age what you're going through is still pretty tightly coupled to your age. I didn't feel normalish until well into high school. I don't recommend it. I recommend letting kids accelerate, but right now the consensus seems to be accelerate most people who need it at 9th grade, not 7th, and definitely not before. As with most of these things the consensus goes back and forth, but that squares with my lived experience.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I wonder if skipping in the middle of the year was particularly bad. The recommendation you cite conflicts with Miraca Gross's recommendation for exceptionally gifted students, but they will be a minority of those who can grade skip.
pokerface_86 3y ago
i took algebra 2/trig as a freshman in a class full of juniors and became friends with pretty much all of them. i was a pakistani dude at a title 1 school. it just depends on the class

lmm 3y ago

And in fact bullying is significantly worse on average when students are not allowed to be accelerated.

8note 3y ago

Does it? The kid is always going to be off from their age group, which is not regular people

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
As adults we're constantly interacting with people younger and older than us by multiple decades. Even as college students we're in classes with those younger or older by multiple years. The modern age-cohort school system is the historic exception. Prior to it single-room schools were common. And prior to those apprenticeships in which some of the apprentices or journeymen were older and younger were common. Heck, in my neighborhood kids were older and younger. I remember getting advice from an older neighborhood kid when beginning elementary school (the part I remember is that lunch boxes weren't cool, and to use a paper bag instead). You're right in that being the single odd-ball is unusual. But I think it would be better to just make partial and full grade skips more common than to make them rarer.