Well, there is a difference between 'soul-sucking brain-crushingly' bored and 'really, quite bored.'
To be honest, neither sounds that great to me. As kids get older, they are more easily able to deal with mild, intermittient boredom, and I do think it's fine to expect a bit of that as part of the overall good package, just so kids don't get the idea that they are so fragile that everything has to be perfect at all times.
But for sure, in the ideal world kids would get to do their academic learning right alongside with other kids who are their same age and same zone of proximal development.
I have no idea how to do that in small towns, but once the population gets dense enough, I don't see any excuse not to cluster group or school within a school kids with unusual zones of proximal development.
For us the skip was really helpful, but it traded the problems of a PG kid for the problems of a gifted kid, and that left a dry sad taste in my mounth. I feel lucky that we were able to undo the grade skip once it became clear that it was needed due to the 2E issues.
((shrugs))
Grinity
