but at some point, there's just no getting around the fact that the WAY that schools teach ND children is just plain not suited to kids +2SD out from the norm.
This hasn't been our personal experience - I think after the 3SD mark this becomes more and more often true, depending on the individual child's strengths and weaknesses and personality.
But this here, I could have written this myself!
Don't be fooled by thinking that middle school (or high school, or {X} grade) will be different... it might be, but it may not be different in a way that makes it an improvement from a HG+ standpoint. What we've learned is that sure, the output demands are significantly increased in MS and HS... and certainly the demands on executive function are greater... but if anything, that makes the fit MUCH MUCH worse. That wasn't the dimension that the challenge needed to be increased, if you see my meaning. In other words, my child's areas of strength are STILL as unchallenged/unfulfilling as they've ever been, but now she's expected to do MORE of the stuff she found pointless all along, and do it faster and with less oversight/support. This taxes her weaknesses (related to asynchronous development) and is hard on her self-esteem in some ways-- but still doesn't allow her to stretch her wings cognitively the way we were all hoping.
I'd place my son just at the 3SD line, with very slow processing speed and ADD. Up through 8th grade with heterogeneous classes, a single skip plus whatever the local Math honors track offered worked very well. At 13, as a 9th grader however the 'product' and 'organization' aspects ramped up steeply as part of the honors track classes. These classes still weren't particularly satisfing intellectually, but the work demands 'oh my!'
Currently my son is at a private school that is much more discussion orriented, more 'big questions of life' orriented, and repeating 9th grade and having a great year. He is one of the best organized and most academically responsible students, particularly amoung the males. He really likes his school and wants to go back again next year. I'm super happy for him, and have learned, at this stage of the game, to just enjoy the present when it's working or even 2/3rd working. I really like that we were able to find local solutions until he was interested in a wider field of options. It is a very different mindset than I started with.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
