[LeftHandPath]

I'm not on quite the same level, but I was definitely quick enough to skip a few grades. Thankfully my parent's didn't let me - I wanted to at the time, but to be honest, the importance of social wellness is drastically understated by academic community.

Humans are animals, and social animals at that. If we don't give our brains social release, we're going to struggle.

[hkmurakami]

I suppose that the tradeoff here is that the child is bored in class right? Curious how you handled the lack of academic challenge given that you were the one who wanted to proactively move up (vs Parents wanting to move their kid up)

[ACow_Adonis]

Anecdote: I took responsibility for my own education.

And by that I mean quite literally I had the epiphany that I was ahead of my peers/some teachers when I entered high school (i remember it was the first time I realised they were ranking us and that we were supposed to be competing for grades... hadn't received any/paid attention to them until then), and so made a vow (child's/ adolescent minds are funny like that) that i would do whatever it takes to learn the truth about things irrespective of this social system/mandate to keep going to school.

Its worked out for me in the long run, but that's partly because I'm deeply interested in the social sciences and so was spending so much time thinking about how these strange humans act and what I can do to learn from their behaviour (still do and always will feel like an alien/man trapped in an asylum though).

At the time though, it resulted in all kinds of social problems. I just stopped doing some assignments + homework. I failed math, then simultaneously topped the grade on the national standardised test they made us take, resulting in a meeting with the school/my parents. I called the math teacher stupid, thinking the adults would listen/care to listen to my words. I was accused of plagiarism in one of my English classes and received a failing grade for that until another meeting: the evidence? Just a general feeling that it was 'too good for someone like me, so someone else must have written it'. I got on fine enough with my peers, it was largely the irrational adult world I couldn't understand at the time.

They tried putting me in gifted programs occasionally, but I viewed (accurately imo) that the children in them were social climbers rather than gifted/smart, so I didn't get along with the other kids in them at all (not as in hostile, as in I just found them incredibly boring people and the entire experience incredibly boring).

In summary, I continued to have social problems and continued this pattern of non attendance, non completion, failure, and randomly top out some metric.

I made it to university where I was promised it would be more intellectual: it wasn't, and my perception there was that it was even more authoritarian/social and about parroting back what the lecturers wanted to hear and doing the admin dance rather than actual intellectual inquiry. I had some good lecturers, but some of the were on another planet of dumb (mainly due to the specialisation heirachy of the university system: even today the idea that you could have knowledge/expertise from more than one field hurts brains). I eventually graduated with a similar pattern of grades, but stopped attending any lectures by the end of it and regularly handed in my assignments late (due, fundamentally, to the mental drudgery of doing them and the absolute inanity of the questions/formats).

My actual goal was a success though: I spent huge amounts of my spare time reading/ studying/discussing things of my own volition, and all I can say is thank GOD I was born just in time for the internet to arrive as I hit adolescence or I think that would have been the end of me. I consider myself learned, mature and happy now. I have a family, and, currently, a job where people listen to me (and outside of silicon valley, a wage considered high, plus I live exactly where I want with access to learning materials still).

It left me deeply distrustful of formal education systems and social institutions (I think justifiably/accurately).

Someone without my ability to learn/observe/pick up on social cues would have been chewed up and spat out though once they reached the real world assuming dad isn't giving them a job, and I would say it's been far from smooth sailing even for me (80% of my life is still pretending I'm 'dumber' than I really am, even though I'm now partly looked up to as an authority in my line of work, and smiling/trying to get along with everyone and the social system).

Protip for those following after: 80% of human social interaction is comprised of recognising who has authority/status, smiling, and avoiding open conflict :p everything also makes a lot more sense when you realise truth doesn't rate as an ongoing concern in most human's lives (but being viewed as 'socially correct' is extremely important).

[dorchadas]

Yep, I was the same way. The school and my parents wouldn't let me, even though I easily could have skipped a few grades. Likewise, I had a chance to go to an academy in my state that basically lets you start college early. You go live on campus, take college classes with other juniors and seniors, etc. I have to say it was just as well that I didn't do that either. I certainly experienced an outgrowth of social experience those last two years, and became, in my own words, a lot more "normal." And it really took some good friends it had taken me a few years to make and a teacher to push me, something I would've never developed if I had skipped through grades.