I'm curious about your experiences. Would you all agree or disagree that high school was a normalizing experience on the road to adulthood?
How about for women? DId any females on this board feel that high school benefitted them "socially and emotionally?" and/or academically. If so, what was your high school like?
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by a normalizing experience? I really made sure that my high school experience wasn't that normal.
I think I DID benefit significantly from HS but not so much from an academic perspective but that was the first time I really had a strong peer group. Most of my friends from hs have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, academics etc. And I did have a handful of close friends who were highly gifted too so I really lucked out.
The classes certainly weren't always the most challenging but I really worked the system. I took classes independently if they didn't interest me, I skipped lunch to take more advanced classes at times and if I was really bored most teachers would write passes to get me out of school and I'd go to the park or pick up donuts for the class or something.
I also was heavily involved in extra-curriculars and barely had a spare moment to myself, which was probably a good thing. I did debate and was on a very team that traveled extensively so that kept me extremely busy.
My school wasn't a gifted school but it did provide an enormous amount of AP/honor classes (and they were FULL). Sure, they tended to cater to "bright" students but there were a number of teachers that had open-ended assignments so you did the amount of work/level of work you wanted to. I think flexibility in the system was the key more than anything else (and I was also a pretty self-aware HS student so if I didn't like a class I would go to my counselor and asked to be switched or ask to take it as an independent student or ask to get rid of prerequisites etc).
I still keep in touch with a number of my friends and they've all followed amazingly interesting paths in their lives. I always assumed this was normal for HS until I went to college and beyond and now I realize I had a pretty unique experience.
Granted, now my thoughts on education have changed rather drastically over time but I still think it was what I needed at that time even if it's not necessarily the type of education I'm planning for my own children.
