I completely agree, Dazey.
I know for a fact that within HOURS of entering a positively intelligence-insulting 1st grade class (where MG girls who had never so much as breathed loudly before were missing recess because of boredom-related bad behavior!), my son's whole personality changed. Changed! Drastically!
He reverted back to his usual sunny self within a day or two of being out of that environment, but he was only in it for a few weeks. I shudder to think about all the harm that "a little bit of boredom" can do to a kid like this!
Granted, this was a pretty extreme situation: an HG+ kid in a class that was really being taught as a remedial class with GOBS of repetition, and there was no differentiated work of any sort. Of course I recognize that there are degrees of boredom, and we had pretty nearly the worst case scenario.
Even so, I really do think that a kid who is acting out because of boredom is absolutley crying out for help. (And many kids NOT acting out but who are bored are in danger, too. Perhaps even *more* so in their own way.)
Truly, I don't think you can let it go in anything but the most minor of cases of boredom in school. I think real damage is done: to personality, to self-concept ("I'm always in trouble so I'm a bad kid..."), to ability to accept less than perfection (or more than underachieving), to the child's whole understanding of what school is and why s/he is there at all, and to his/her feelings about parents and teachers and communicating with them or trusting them.
I really think there's an abusive sort of thing going on in many of these situations. We wouldn't say, "Oh, that kid didn't eat enough again today. Well, he's just a little hungry. He needs to learn to accept hunger. It's a part of life." For GT kids, learning is like food. It's not a want, it's a NEED! The responsible adults must see to it that that need is met. Period.
Certainly there are levels of boredom. 15 minutes here or there isn't the end of the world. But if more than just a little of the day is boredom, I really think damage is being done to some degree. The greater the level and amount of boredom, the worse the damage.
I'm sorry to soapbox, but I feel very, very strongly about this.
