Parents worry quite a bit about the social lives of children who are accelerated. Well, I was a PG kid who was not accelerated (though I did have some enrichment programs for gifted students), but I had to reach far beyond my age cohort and my hometown to find my peer group. What I wrote below illustrates that.
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By my invitation, someone from the prosecutor's office came to speak to my class about online safety, cyberbullying, sexting, etc. As part of that discussion, I mentioned that I only add my students to Facebook after they graduate from high school. My flip answer when asked why is that I don't want to hear what teenagers have to say. That's the sixth grade version of "The level of discourse on my Facebook is higher than the level of most teenagers' Facebooks."
So I look at ten posts in my news feed on Facebook.
1) A lovely landscape photo from a traveling, overseas friend I first met on a blog.
2) A positive review of a foreign language movie from a friend who was two years behind me in college.
3) A short post from a friend who was a college freshman when I was a senior. He's traveling, too, unless the journey is metaphorical. It's a distinct possibility.
4) An image pointing out that urea is added to cigarettes to enhance flavor, via a grad school classmate in another country.
5) An attempt by a cousin in my home county to manipulate people into sharing the post about our religion. The manipulation seemed to work on her, anyway.
6) A reference by someone who attended my college after I graduated to something happening in her hometown, several states away from where she now lives.
7) A discussion of neologisms via a published crime author who was a senior in college the year I was a freshman.
8) An illustration shared by someone who attended my college after I graduated.
9) A political post from the tuba player who was in the marching band with me when he was a high school senior and I was in 7th grade.
10) A marathon photo of a married couple who were my college classmates.
