So you're griping about classes you were getting paid to take?
You choose to play the game, if you choose to play the game, then you have to accept what the rules of the game are. The rules of that game are, you do the work, you pass the tests, you pass the class, you move on. If you don't like the game, don't play it.

That's a reality that my eldest DS has learned well, we all daily play games we don't control the rules of, make a choice, live with your choices.

You make a lot of pronouncements that imply that solutions to complex problems are simple. They aren't. For example, kids aren't generally sophisticated enough to understand that stuff they've been told all or most of their lives isn't true. This is where we get former tiger cubs who become very, very unhappy when they start to grow up and realize what was going on.

There was also a blithe statement about making your own challenging workplace. That's not so easy for people who have bills to pay or special-needs kids to take care of.

Etc. etc.

What *does* happen to them in real life, anyway?

Silly.

You just smash the rules you don't like.

Or break the game.

Nobody says you have to follow the rules or keep the game going.

I do want to say I better lots of tiger cubs are highly talented as well. For example, Amy Chua's two daughters.

I meant I bet.

It's a lesson that all outliers have to learn, to some extent, yes. We prefer (in our household) to refer to this as "nodding and smiling, but staying clear of the refreshment table."

(In other words, nobody is making any of us drink the KoolAid).

Right now, DD has a revisionist APUSH teacher who apparently thinks (among other things) that FDR was the devil, that McCarthy was simply a misunderstood man that probably saved the world, and other equally odd things. This teacher requires students to subscribe to that particular worldview or lose points on assignments, as my daughter discovered. It doesn't matter if my daughter can defend her perspective or provide evidence that support her assertions to the contrary... Nope. She knows better than to try, in fact-- she knows what she knows, and is happy to learn deeply and collect such evidence for herself, but she knows better than to turn it in for a grade.

Still, this kind of intellectually dishonest or narrow methodology is not a good way to serve very bright students, because it does force them underground like that. Not good.

Your comment reminded me of this: http://www.susanohanian.org/core.php?id=681

Perhaps "Common Core" is a pseudonym for Tiger Parent?

Oh, don't worry about stuff like that.

You can rest assured that McNamara and the Whiz Kids know what they are doing.

One of my favorite professors had it on his syllabus that no one is to ever ask that question.