I encourage this type of education. Kids need to be held accountable for their actions, just like everyone else.
Normalize humility
I encourage this type of education. Kids need to be held accountable for their actions, just like everyone else.
Normalize humility
My partner and many of her friends did IB in the late 2000s and every single one has trauma from the workload and culture of expected achievement and it doesn’t seem to have benefited their careers at all. (I did Running Start instead, a Washington State early college program, and had a very positive experience)
I did GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) from fourth through eighth grade and went with an AP-heavy high school (graduated in 2010) instead of an IB school in the district, and I’d say it left similar scars.
There were aspects that I think were beneficial, such as specialized math tutoring and more hands-on projects, but god the pressure and workload was truly damaging at such a young age. Add undiagnosed ADHD, and you’ve got an 11 year old self-harming as a method to stay focused during the hours and hours of daily homework.
I developed a different coping strategy. When I figured out I was smarter than everyone else my age I simply stopped doing homework and coasted on high test scores. That worked from age 8 to 16 when I had to contend with the fact that I had never learned how to actually study or manage my time. Pretty easy to slip through the cracks when you’re well-behaved and the district didn’t have any money for advanced learning programs anyway~