Off The Charts

I'm not a researcher, but I tend to make judgements based on things I do know or experience. I make decisions about things based on my experience or knowledge too. I mean, I think we all do, don't we?

Anyway, moving on....

Boy had his testing last night. He's supposedly entering the 3rd grade. The curriculum we're using is 3-4. His testing is practically off the charts. lowest grade level is in math; 4th grade. That is something that is specific, and taught in order, so he's basically learned it as we've taught it. He understands higher principles, but we have no worked on them so he hasn't been able to make it "click" yet. Highest score was spelling and reading at a 8th grade level.

I was one of those kids too when I was in school. I started reading about the same time as my kid did (3 years old) and went into school already knowing what they were teaching (at the time). So I was "bored", but ended up finding my "calling" of sorts, being teacher's pet (a title they tortured me with for years then refused to recognize me as it senior year in the yearbook superlatives or whatever...). I graded papers for teachers for years, for so long, actually, that I forget when that actually ended. Probably high school or jr high when they just didn't do that anymore, or it was part of the class work to switch papers and correct them.... I dunno. In high school I practically lived in the band room, it was my escape, my hiding place, my home. Not often to practice music either because I was far exceeding what we were doing in there too. The music wasn't that hard, really, and we didn't actually get blessed with learning anything because the other kids wouldn't listen. :(

Anyway, my thinking is this. If I had sent this boy to school, I can bet you that he would not act the way I did. I'm betting he would start goofing off and getting into trouble. His boredom would lead to troublemaking. His troublemaking would lead to him having repeated negative interactions with staff, which would eventually lead to what he already has a problem with; feeling bad about himself and being an angry kid (sometimes he does feel this way because his perfectionism is as deep as mine....). Pair that with the "Lord of the Flies" hierarchy of high school, and you've got yourself a major problem. 

Is this a typical thing for advanced girls vs boys? The boys would end up being bored and getting into trouble and the girls would try to be "teachers" too? Or find some other acceptable escape?

All I can say is I am very grateful for homeschooling. We can blast threw some things or skip some things that he's advanced at, and just edit for what he needs. So far, I haven't been good at doing this. But I can finally say, after two years of this homeschool thing under my belt, I'm finally flexible enough to edit. :P

So what I was getting at in the beginning of this post was this is a form of personal research. ;) :P Let me know! Were you ahead? Behind? Average? What are your experiences? What have you read?