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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How much does it matter to be 'challenged' at school as a kid?
I feel like I was never really challenged until grad school, and it was fine for me. I had more time to do other things, reading other books I liked, going places with my parents w/o stressing about homework, etc.[/quote]

Me too! That said I went to an excellent public school  - lack of challenge is one thing, but at least the school was safe, and reasonably stimulating.[/quote]

I second this, and also the PP who mentioned a G&T program that was mostly brain teasers and going to museums.

I did a similar G&T program. It was more structured that the museum-going program, by the sound of it, but the focus was definitely on "enrichment" as opposed to "acceleration". The basic idea was, hey kid, you find this school stuff easy, but what about this other stuff over here? And the other stuff could be high-school level science experiments in grade 1, but without making a fuss about it.

We were mostly in classes with the other kids, but pulled out to attend these other activities here and there, at least once per week. I think the G&T cohort was composed of some truly gifted kids plus some kids that were "just" above average and really well-prepared, very educated and involved parents, and so on. Which is great, by the way. If those above-average and well-prepared kids are contributing to a G&T type program, then they should absolutely attend. It's like a top college - some people are there because they are geniuses, some because they worked really hard. As long as they all contribute, they are all welcome.

Regarding these analogies about driving on the highway and when differentiation can and can't work, I think the answer is, a class will be ok if it more or less features a bell curve, with 10-20% struggling, 60-80% middle range, and 10-20% excelling. It will work fine even if the range is extreme, provided that 1) the majority of kids are keeping up with the basic requirements and 2) there are some pull-outs and extra after hours work for both extremes. A lot of that has to come from parents, but some can come from the school, like the program I was in.

The problem is when the struggling students overwhelm the class, and when there are major behavioral issues. Let's say you have a class where 50% don't read at grade level. Ok, clearly there you are not going to have any enrichment for the advanced kids! The advanced kids need to leave the classroom for a few hours week and do some other stuff while the struggling kids get intensive tutoring. Provided the resources are there, that's the obvious answer. This stuff is actually pretty easy, folks!

But going back to the quoted text above, school is also a time for hanging out with your parents, doing unstructured stuff in your spare time, reading whatever you want to read, doing sports or other activities, computer programming, whatever. I would have died if I had grown up in China, doing all of that crazy homework all the time, all the rote work. We need to give our kids some time to just explore, too!

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