When we talk about underachievement, we never seem to say that gifted kids often do not get good grades or good jobs because they do not recognize report card grades, GPA, or a high salary as a valid measure of achievement. And that's part of what coasting does to you, too.
So true Beckee!
Nothing was very interesting. Nothing.
Coasting is just making do. Waiting for ... nothing. Because year after year, school day after school day, what you can immediately grasp after the first 5 minutes the teacher introduces and then repeats for the rest of week shows you there will be nothing interesting.
Coasting at a school is waiting to be fed. And they feed new interesting things ... so.... ..... slow. If I was interested, I went off to the library and read it already. But then I still have to hear it again and write it out to "show" I know it on paper for the next week or two or three.
The non-coasting, the acceleration, the challenge, is a light. Invigorates. I am alive. I can think and not be invisible. (Haha, I can "not-"exist in class and be invisible, and daydream, and still do well in school. This is a sick laugh because I died then. There was no point in it. A slow torture.) The light -- I need it to live. Please challenge my brain.
Add to this, issues with perfectionism, underachievement, wanting to be normal. Imagine everyone reading at Gr. 1 level but you read books at the Gr.3-4 level. There is no one to talk to about the fascinating stories you've just read. The isolation. Aaagh.
But it depends on the child. In the OP's case, it seems to work out ok. But for others, it darkens their soul, ahem, because some would feel rather intensely about all this.
