Thanks, Jesse. And good question. I see humility as a kind of modesty and lack of desire to flaunt prowess. I guess my concern is that even though she's aware that kids have varying abilities in different areas, and is especially aware of the gap between her own areas of facility and of challenge, she's increasingly prone to seeing success at school as a measure of a child's worth. I'm not sure where this is coming from--although her teacher suggested that it may be because they're doing lots of group work, and she structures the groups to include high and low achievers "for balance". Instead of balance, I think this is giving my DD an inflated sense of self-worth in an academic context; totally different story on the sports field, where she compares herself to kids with lots of athletic ability (and skills they've honed over years) and wants to throw in the towel rather than compete.
A comment that made me cringe is that DD says that the "smart kids" go to enrichment...I'd love it if opportunities for academic enrichment could be built in to the curriculum without making other kids feel excluded.
