Quote: . School is for the harder stuff: social awareness, cooperative learning, team building, and even, yes, learning how to do group activities they think are boring or beneath them with a good attitude.
An advanced kid can participate in all of these activities and they're not going to get out of all the awareness and co-operation that the other kids will. The experience of an advanced child in a group activity is different. In a group without your abilities you're not going to get the teamwork and cooperation experience that the other kids are getting from it. You're asking young children to be mature enough not to be frustrated from having to work with people who can't do the work. They're either going to be frustrated or they're going to do all of the work or they're going to do all the work as well as engage and include the other kids, if I recall correctly.
They would learn co-operation, team building, and social awareness by working with kids at a similar ability level. That's why they make the talent searches and summer camps so gifted kids get a chance to live all these normal childhood experiences that most other kids get yearly in school.
I hear ya, "the world's made up of all different folks, adjust". I just sent my kid to school for fun. I told him, "have fun & behave". I think the school experience can give my kids more of something that I can. I think there's some things the other kids will get out of it that gifted kids won't.
