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Comment by zem | Hacker News Reader

depends on your goal. I agree that "push them to become the next Einstein" is humbug, but "learn things appropriate to their intellectual development while staying with their age cohort" seems like a better outcome than either being bored and learning nothing in a regular class, or skipping a grade and having to cope with being a year younger than everyone else.

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That "smart kids are bored in class" thing is bs unless your kid has savant intelligence (Terence Tao level).

If your kid is very bright, it's better for him/her to be among general peers and experience what it's like to be top of the class. In my opinion the confidence that this instills is more important than "not being bored". All the serious learning happens in high school anyway.

Some parents who rabidly pursue gifted programs deep down know that their kid is not special, but are hoping that the giftedness of other kids in class will rub off on their kid, or that the higher level of education will push their kid from average to above-average. That's also where the "smart kids are bored in class (and hence not doing great)" comes from.

it's more like "they are teaching my kid reading/maths/etc that they have already done a couple of years ahead on their own, just out of interest. more prevalent in the first 3-4 years of school than later on, but those are often just the years where teachers are not willing to give the kids any option but to participate in the class anyway.

>That "smart kids are bored in class" thing is bs unless your kid has savant intelligence (Terence Tao level).

Nah, pretty much everyone of slightly above average intelligence spends most of school bored.

Yeah, "bored" is a shared symptom which can come from a broad set of causes which call for different responses.

Some non-exhaustive examples:

1. Bored because they already knows the material.

2. Bored because the particular in-class activities are not engaging but they'll make more progress at home.

3. Bored because the entire subject seems like pointless memorization.

4. Bored because of a neurochemical issue.

5. Bored because the lesson is over their heads, and they need to be distracted.

"Bored" as the reason that a student is underperforming is almost always bs. If you're so smart then just perfect the material and ace your tests. It should be exciting not boring.

I went to a magnet high school. The very smart kids have a lot of fun running circles around everybody else.

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