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If the kids are bright, send them to a school or an environment where they can live that out. I don't know about the US but in Germany the quality of schools va
by ThePhysicist 2y ago
If the kids are bright, send them to a school or an environment where they can live that out. I don't know about the US but in Germany the quality of schools varies dramatically both between regions and within. I loved computer science, physics and math in high school but my school did very little to encourage this. Only my physics teacher encouraged me and helped me sign up for competitions and a special programme that allowed me to attend university math/physics classes while still in school (I'm not a prodigy by a far shot, just very eager to learn and nerdy).
When I came to uni and met other kids with the same desire to learn I was shocked how well they were prepared, they e.g. learned using Mathematica/Maple in school, had real computer science classes and a ton of extracurricular activities. We didn't have any of that, our only capable computer science teacher was an alcoholic and none of the other teachers knew anything about computers. In the end it didn't make a big difference though, I had to catch up a bit on some of the things but it wasn't like they were leagues ahead.
The only thing I would be careful with is setting kids on a trajectory where their self worth gets coupled to feeling special or talented. Inevitably once they get into communities where more and more bright kids hang out they will regress to the norm, and some kids don't handle that well. Don't let them think they always need to be the best to be "worth" something, instead teach them to enjoy what they do for the sake of it.
- ykonstant 2y agoThe last paragraph is very important!
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- hermitcrab 2y agoI agree with that last paragraph. It is more healthy to praise kids for the effort that they put in, rather than the results they get.
- wanderingbort 2y agoWe chose to do the opposite. Our kids are in a school that provides excellent opportunities to build the skills they struggle with. They already pursue the things that come naturally to them. As parents, feeding those flames is easy and we take that responsibility personally. It is the other life skills that we need help with. Having qualified educators work on our kids non-preferred skill sets seems to be a better balance of resources. They may miss out on being nationally recognized math olympians BUT life is so much longer than that period.
- tarsinge 2y agoI hope it works for you. My parents chose to leave me in the normal school and curriculum "because that would surely make me normal". It was miserable for me. Social skills never came naturally, I was isolated and bullied, and bored to death in classes. At the end of my childhood the results were trauma and bad grades. I'm quite sure I would have been happier getting more stimulated on what I loved. They made the common mistake of thinking that improving skills you are already strong would be somehow detrimental to others.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago> It was miserable for me. Social skills never came naturally, I was isolated and bullied, and bored to death in classes. At the end of my childhood the results were trauma and bad grades. Concerning the social skills argument: the only "social skill" that school teaches is becoming capable of hating other people so much that you deep from your heart wish them to be dead.
- aklemm 2y agoHerding kids of all the same age into daily hours of structured instruction is an anti-socialization, I'm sure of it.
- eitally 2y agoPerhaps for a small segment of the school-going population but this is not universal and you know it.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago> Perhaps for a small segment of the school-going population but this is not universal and you know it. Indeed: there exist perpetrators and victims (or specifically for bullying: the bullies and the bullied ones). And there exist people who are simply "blind" to what happens around them.
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago