Yeah, I guess I just see this as a pretty binary thing.
Just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD.
My basic assumption is that acceleration in the formal sense-- that is, a child entering an external setting one or more years prior to chronological age would ordinarily indicate--
is always a means of more-or-less last resort, and seldom something that should be done in the absence of other accommodations for learning rate/ability. I'm relying upon what I've read here (and seen in the TV clip) that indicates that this was boxed curriculum used as directed/intended, and without extensions/differentiation.
Ergo, if a child CAN be accelerated several years like that, they they SHOULD be accommodated by reaching deeper than standard curriculum goes, and broader as well. Not "instead of" but as a set of first line intervention strategies. If that isn't sufficient, then you start looking at acceleration or other alternatives.
The reason is that there are real and long-lasting consequences for being socially and chronologically that out of step with 99% of the other people you will ever encounter in your life. KWIM? It leaves you with gaps in shared experience when your high school years don't include driving, dating, or even puberty. Those things matter in terms of relating to others socially.
So you don't do that without the alternative being more or less "bad for the child."
I also know from many years of experience that kids who are actually capable of this kind of acceleration deeply deserve a better fit than curriculum that was written with average learners in mind. Faster pace doesn't make the material better all by itself.
I'm not against acceleration. But I do think that kids who need acceleration need other types of interventions, too. Kids who don't need acceleration, (I'm reluctant to say this because I know that it sounds elitist/harsh,) I truly think it's better for most of those kids NOT to accelerate them.
I guess part of my objection is that this seems to play to EXACTLY the very worst impulses that I see in the hyper-competitive parents we run into locally. The ones with MG kids who are determined to "discipline" them into PG status. Arms race. Tiger Parenting. Whatever you want to call it. Those parents are perfectly okay rationalizing 16 hour days out of their middleschoolers under the auspices of "instilling a good work ethic," even if I personally think that is abusive.
See, these are parents that actually are REALLY THINKING the wry things that JonLaw posts which make me laugh so hard. They really believe that they are preparing their kids to compete for scarce resources when the Zombie Apocalypse happens-- or at least to save themselves from a fate even worse... mediocrity. I don't laugh when I hear local parents say them, though-- because they mean them. They sincerely believe that if they groom their kids well enough, they can guarantee Harvard admission and the Busby Berkeley musical number that is your entire life afterwards, I guess. But it's Hard, Very Hard Work to get into get your child into Harvard. Oh, the shame if it were only Stanford or Brown or Princeton...
This produces a "hurried" child. It's one thing if the child is the one in a hurry-- many, many HG+ children are like that. For all I know, this is the case in the Harding clan.
It's very different if it's mom and dad working that magic ON a compliant son or daughter, though, and that's where I object to the statements that Mr. Harding made on television. Not only can "any family" not do this-- more to the point, most of them SHOULD not. But there is a terrified group of parents who are worried that their kids are not going to be "competitive" enough... who may be tempted to try.
