My DS15 has never been one to really challenge himself. He's not a look-at-me kid and thinks grades are stupid. In the lower grades he was against memorizing his math facts because he found the speed and repetition tedious. In middle school math he easily understood all the concepts but would often get the final answer wrong because of a careless errors. I was always told he was appropriately challenged because he was not getting straight A's even though he was assessed as PG.
Also, he only speaks up in class to answer something difficult or offer an alternate point of view. He told me he doesn't like to answer anything remotely easy to him because he likes to leave that for the other kids. He never goes in for "facetime" with the teachers even though his private school puts great emphasis on personal interaction with the teachers. He knows that teachers will give exam related info during these visits that is not given out during class time to encourage this interaction but he refuses to participate because he doesn't need help with anything.
As a 10th grader he is taking AP stats, honors pre-calc, honors latin, honors bio, and honors physics and getting straight A's. BUT, he is bored out of his mind because the material is super easy for him and the achievement stars from elementary and middle school are struggling with the "difficult" work load.
His teacher for honors geo & trig from 9th grade said he was one of the most capable math students he ever had.
His school requires students to take AP Calc AB before BC. I fear this will be another source of boredom because of the significant overlap. Ugh!
Looking back, his lack of desire for more challenging work and recognition caused his lower and middle school teachers to view him as only a good student who was appropriately challenged. He wants more challenging work now but is stuck because he needs calc as prerequisite for courses he is interested in.
We couldn't force any enrichment on him when he was younger. Now, I think he regrets refusing most of our suggestions.
