[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[der Mouse]

> i recall [someone who studied special ed] saying that smart kids
> -will- 'be okay' - up to about 110 or 115 iq.  farther out on the
> curve, the pace of school is too slow to hold their attention; by iq
> 135 they can learn twice as fast as the median.  they fail because
> school is profoundly -boring-.[0]  i know i had that problem.

Me too.  I got increasingly frequent strep throats until the doctor
said "try taking him out of school".  Poof, no more strep throats.

Not psychosomatic in the usual sense - they did culture the relevant
pathgen from swabs, I'm told - but clearly psychological in some way.
(No, strep was not common enough at the school to account for it. :)

> [0] the schoolhouse method of having the smart kids help the slow
> ones doesn't work at this level.  the -really-smart- ones just get
> pissed off that the others don't get it.

Not only that, but past a certain level of difference, the smart ones
get so severely ostracized that I have to question whether the others
would accept help from them.

At least that was my experience.  I was treated more like a circus
sideshow freak than a fellow child.  (To an extent I was; if they had
accepted me as the latter, the former might not have been a problem.
But kids who can do that are..rare.  I met *one*.)

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