Being at the same ability level matters way more than being at the same age. Speaking from personal experience, the whole "let's try to pretend that this kid is normal and that with enough time he will fit in" has had terrible consequences on my mental health, and even on my social ability with the rare people that I feel comfortable with.
I think that in many case, trying to pretend that people are the same when they are not is causing a lot of pain for everyone involved. Holding a conversation with a normal person requires me to expand a lot of energy to not be myself, because if I am I will quickly be hurt and/or rejected. And just like I often hurt people by being myself, other people hurt me by being themselves. Trying to explain it to them has been pointless in all situation, and most of the time makes the situation worse.
Why would any of us have to endure that, when we could instead be with groups of like-minded people and enjoy life more? I don't feel superior to those people, and spending more time with them leads me to develop more negative sentiments towards them. I think the sane option is to avoid them as much as possible, while making sure that I treat them with respect. I can't change fundamentally who I am, they can't change who they are. I can't understand why you advocate for a situation that creates so much suffering for everyone involved.
You realize there are plenty of places like Exeter, Andover, Stuyvesant, Boston Latin, Bronx Science, etc. full of genius children, right? I agree those places are much better than a given average High School.
The problem is putting a child in an environment where they are surrounded by adults all the time. Like being 17 and having your 'peers' be 30 year old post-docs who are getting married and having children is a complete mind-fuck.
Why are you so focused on the NYC high-end high school segment? It is utterly unrelatable to 95% of all students and conservatively 85% of users here.
Being surrounded by adults all the time is only a problem if you never spend time around actual peers. Nobody should be forced to isolate themselves like that.
The opposite causes the teacher as well as the peers to resent the more intelligent child, so which is better?
I could read since I was 4. When others at school were reading one word per minute spelling letter by letter, I finished the whole article and then continued to another and another. Result? I got a teacher's note (a big deal where I live) almost every lesson, and bad grades. And the children hated me, probably mostly because of the teacher mocking me for not paying attention. I would give anything to be boosted to similarly skilled children. I was friends with them anyways, never really liked the kids from my grade (but that could've been avoided if I wasn't forced to "learn" with them).
I've never seen a boosted child say it wasn't worth it or that they had much problems being a year/two younger than their classmates. Actually, smaller schools here usually combine 2-3 grades into one anyways and the children are friends alright, so boosting the taught curriculum is really not a big deal (unfortunately the system didn't allow it when I went to school).
Students can tell who's smarter and who's not, and someone at the same level of learning will always be far more of a peer than someone who happens to be the same age. All the available evidence is that the best thing for children's social life is to let them interact with people at the same learning level rather than the same age. (To say nothing of the fact that segregating students by age is unnatural in the first place, and traditional cultures where kids grow up around people of a wide range of ages are far better for their social development than the western school model...).
It's not coincidence that through most of human history doctors did more harm than good. Yes, sometimes unnatural interventions are better for us than the ancestral environment, but that's very much not the default case.
Yes. It is a brutal existence. Social isolation can continue long past when you would expect it to end, after graduation from high school or college, because of the exploitive behaviors of employers and the self-exploitive nature of someone who only finds solace in work.
What is the solution? I will not spoil it for you, but it does not involve giving up.
I mean sure, Hacker News is proof of that, but most hyper successful adults that were prodigies went to places like Exeter, Andover, Stuyvesant, Boston Latin, Bronx Science, etc. where they are around smart people their age.
