chris1234--I am not totally sure what your "ouch" comment meant, but what I meant by mine was that I didn't find junior high to be a period during which I was being taught how to be a socially functional person by my peer learning experiences at school. Obviously, it COULD happen. It didn't happen to me, though (and my jr. high experience was actually not too bad).
FWIW, my child is at a gifted magnet. So...I have obviously made the ideological decision to school her only with kids in her general ability range for the time being. I did give this quite a lot of thought before I did it, but we were in an unsatisfactory school and this was pretty much our only other option. I don't feel that she's being warped by it in any way or that she can no longer relate to nongifted kids or any such thing. I don't see any budding exceptionalism (if anything, her self esteem is low; no idea what, if anything, this has to do with school).
