Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Race to Nowhere- any thoughts?

I went to a rural public school where there was a policy against skipping grades, limited social choices and no internet or any other access to the outside world. A number of times I made attempts to get them to make exceptions to this no skip policy, but without success. I could also hardly wait to finally become part of the nerd crowd I felt I belonged with.

Looking back, I am happy I never succeeded in both the grade skipping and a desire to find the nerd crowd early in life. Having seen the world outside of a world I would have choosen is the most valuable education I have had to date.

The delay in education helped me see the world before being taught about the world. When I did finally have the opportunity to pursue the areas of study I was most interested in, I realized much of what I was being taught was inaccurate. Rather than study my field of interest, I choose to avoid education in this area until I was confident I had seen more of the world. I came to the conclusion that there was as much danger in education as there was benefit. This may not be the case in all areas of study, but I feel my area of interest hasn't matured enough.

As to my social desires, I now realize making these choices based on preconceived notions would have been a big mistake. By the time I did find the nerd crowd, I realized they were not as into their interests on average as I had originally suspected. The odd person was, but most of them were people who merely skimmed the surface of the subjects they were supposedly interested in.

Cities offer the opportunity for us to place ourselves into a box with a very limited view of the world around us. Even a lot of people who travel the world confine themselves to a very similar world to the one they live in locally. I sometimes feel I have met a greater variety of people in the small community I grew up in than most people who travel the world will ever meet.

As the population in my home town increased, the coffee shop went from having tables consisting of a very mixed crowd to tables with very similar people. You now find tables exclusively consisting of farmer, teachers, mechanics, similar ages, same genders, etc. When the population was smaller, the tables were of mixed ages, genders and areas of interest. The level of conversation in these mixed crowds was far more interesting and in many cases had greater depth.