I should have stated, "some" of the gifted students at my school have difficulty relating to age-level peers. ...but I hate to see them ostracized in their regular classrooms.
It just seems in my gifted class I am currently taking to get my certification, I am reading a lot about how gifted teachers should nurture the social development of our students.
My kid was treated with harshness by the students one year - and the teacher was openly showing her frustration. She didn't like that he 'slowed thing down' by wanting his own questions answered. These were questions which were 'on topic' from an adult perspective, but 'too difficult to be useful to his peers' from a teacher's perspective.
I don't know if there was a causation arrow, but the next year the teacher was very delighted, and good at setting limits before she got frustrated, and it was a wonderful year - the peer relations were great too. This teacher actually thought up a project for DS to run to give the classmates a chance to enjoy his strengths. She never let on that this was a special intervention for him until years later.
As far as all the focus in your classwork, I'm a bit skeptical. As if they are trying to make it 'fair' that some kids get academics so easily by focusing on how common the social growth needs teacher help. To me, the ideal answer is to put the child in the classroom where the work is at their 'ready to learn' level and chances are that the social questions will iron themselves out, or if they don't that it will be the normal life lessons everyone needs to learn.
But those decisions are most often made at a higher level than the classroom teacher.
I'd also encourage you to post on SENG's parent forum. Here we skew a bit farther from the mean than most gifted groups. Everyone is welcome here, but because we've created a safer place for parents of unusually gifted kids, you'll see a disproportionate picture here. All the children are important, so it's good to collect info from many sources.
Shrugs,
Grinity
