I was "gifted", at one point. Make this kid work for something. Work ethic suffers when things are easy, which becomes a problem later on when things become less easy. And they will become less...
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I was "gifted", at one point. Make this kid work for something. Work ethic suffers when things are easy, which becomes a problem later on when things become less easy. And they will become less easy, as initial talent can only take you so far.
I don't know what you can do with regards to working with the school... but you can maybe come up with your own supplemental lesson plans. Maybe look into some college curriculum? Sure, hit on STEM subjects... but don't neglect the humanities.
Either way, make sure some effort is involved. The more your son can get by on natural talent, the more averse he may become to putting in actual work.
I would advise caution with this sort of advice. Be especially careful with taking this approach in discussions with schools. I don't necessarily disagree with the intentions, but it is easy, and...
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I would advise caution with this sort of advice. Be especially careful with taking this approach in discussions with schools. I don't necessarily disagree with the intentions, but it is easy, and often convenient, for them to be be misinterpreted and implemented horribly. I went, for 6th and 7th grade, to a gifted program in a public school district that seemed built around implementing a warped understanding of the ideas in this comment by any means, and it was probably the most traumatic and abusive experience of my life.
It is easy to ensure that students, no matter how talented, feel challenged by work. You simply give them more work to do, regardless of what that work is, until they are challenged not by the content but by the amount. This is far less work for teachers and schools than coming up with an intellectually stimulating curriculum, especially when those teachers are often given gifted and talented classes as an addition to their usual classes, meaning that they are forced to choose between increasing their own workload to satisfy often very demanding students, or taking the far easier route.
In our case, if I recall correctly, we were in school for between 7 to 8 hours per day, five days a week, and had five classes, each of which told us we should expect to have about 2 hours of homework per night, almost none of which could be done at school. Objections that the overall schedule expected of us was not feasible were dismissed by noting that it was our choice to be in the program, that we needed to choose which classes to prioritize, or that other classes should reduce their homework.
Homework was not intellectually challenging, it was just horrific busy work. In some classes, this quite literally meant just giving us more---often some multiple of questions---of the same homework assigned to other classes the teacher had: for example, giving questions 1-10 at the end of a lesson in a textbook to other classes, and questions 1-40 to gifted classes. In others, it meant bizarrely pointless rote work: the most absurd example that has always persisted in my mind was an assignment in English, which was quite simple: make a list of every simile and simple metaphor in a several hundred page novel. Don't analyse the use of metaphor or simile by the author: literally produce a spreadsheet reproducing every sentence in the novel that contains a simile or metaphor, and list what words it uses for comparison in the case of a simile. In yet other cases, homework was simply meant to be impossible: my mother once had a frustrated argument with a science teacher who would show educational videos to his classes on days when the gifted program sent its students elsewhere, and then assign all of his students, including the gifted students, worksheets asking questions specific to those videos. My mother argued, unsuccessfully, that we should be allowed to watch the videos we were assigned homework about.
Classes were largely built around going through the homework of the previous night, or repeating the same material taught to everyone else, and then using the remaining time for rants about unrelated topics, or, in some cases, actual lesson plans built around telling students the horrors of dropping out and going to college earlier, seemingly built in response to my increasing discussion of this option.
I often comment that when, after 7th grade, I dropped out of middle school, and went to college instead, I did so because college was easier. This is not untrue, in some sense: college classes had more intellectually challenging material, but were, of course, designed to teach the material, rather than being designed to keep students working as much as possible. I went from often getting B and C grades in middle school---simply as a result of being unable to complete all the work, and being physically and emotionally exhausted---to being toward the top of all of my classes. I also didn't feel like I was putting in that much actual work or effort, because the work I was being asked to do was work that I actually enjoyed doing, work that I had been crying out for years to be able to do.
I think I'd actually argue against coming up with supplemental lesson plans: instead, especially with so much material being so easily accessible, helping him find material himself to learn, and instilling a sense of self-motivation and self-direction in learning, might be a better option.
These days? Totally fine. I bummed around doing retail and reading every other moment I could until I saw the dead look in the eyes of the people who were 40 or 50 and still working big box store...
These days? Totally fine. I bummed around doing retail and reading every other moment I could until I saw the dead look in the eyes of the people who were 40 or 50 and still working big box store retail and decided to go to college. Fell in with a good crowd there who could overlook my lack of proper socialization (theater nerds, god bless them every one.) College degree by thirty, own/run my own small business before forty. I've probably "squandered" my potential, but I feel ok about how things turned out.
I'd say yes. I did it a few years younger than than you, but the basic thrust was this: *1: full time work and evening/day off classes at a community college, focusing on classes that would count...
I'd say yes. I did it a few years younger than than you, but the basic thrust was this:
*1: full time work and evening/day off classes at a community college, focusing on classes that would count as transferrable to the public state college system. FAFSA grants to cover school costs, work to cover living. No life, but also no debt. This part took me four years, but meant that I was fitting it in around my life. If it had turned out to not be for me, or something different came along, I wouldn't be trapped, forced to finish it out.
*2: part time work and full class load at a state college, with some student loans to cover the difference. This bit I needed to get done as fast as possible, and it's only because of class scheduling that it took two years. If I could have done it in 3 semesters I would have, to save on the tuition/living costs. Part time work made it more palatable, but I still ended up with $14k of student loan debt. That's still not bad, especially comparing my pre and post college pay.
The standard disclaimers apply: this is what worked for me, that was most of a decade ago, tuition prices are different now, who knows what school is like with the pandemic... but if you don't like what you're doing, is it more tolerable to try and make a change and have it maybe not work. or just buckle down and do that unfulfilling job until you retire or die? Lots of schooling can be done around your life even if you have other commitments, and it's not easy, but it's possible to have an easier, more interesting life afterwards.
I’ll tell you the stress and fear has never really been about: can I go back to school? It’s always been, who is hiring a now 36-year-old graduate with a spotty work history (best I have is my...
I’ll tell you the stress and fear has never really been about: can I go back to school? It’s always been, who is hiring a now 36-year-old graduate with a spotty work history (best I have is my current 5 years and counting at UPS) and zero work history in their chosen field?
I’m trying to make driver at UPS and it’s a solid 6 figure job with a heap of benefits and retirement safety, but I tried it last year (got kicked and have to wait to try again) and it was tough and I knew it would suck the life out of me and make me a miserable cunt, financially comfortable but miserable.
I’m engaged and I want to do right by my fiancée too.
I can't make the decision for you but I can tell you this -- if you do go back to school you need to prioritize a school/degree with a good co-op/internship program. You'll still need to break...
I can't make the decision for you but I can tell you this -- if you do go back to school you need to prioritize a school/degree with a good co-op/internship program.
You'll still need to break into the industry without experience but you'll have a few things going for you -- your school's co-op program to help find opportunities and refine your resume/interview prep as well as companies hiring for internships is exponentially lower risk than hiring for a full time position. It's a low cost trial period for them where they get to offload some busy work to you and you get some experience. So they're a lot more willing to give you a chance.
Then after you graduate you can leverage your internships to get a full time position.
Yeah, I get that. Part of why I run my own company and haven't given it up even in the lean years is because of a fear of getting into the corporate machine, or alternately trying and failing. I...
Yeah, I get that. Part of why I run my own company and haven't given it up even in the lean years is because of a fear of getting into the corporate machine, or alternately trying and failing. I will say that choosing a profession that you can do independently and still make decent pay is going to leave you with many more options.
If you can get a job making six figures, benefits, and retirement, it's hard to say you shouldn't take that, but if the job is hard and/or unfulfilling it'll be all the more important that you have a life outside of it that makes you happy and fulfilled. Education is going to take years to accomplish and longer to pay off and if you can get a job that will pay more sooner and let you retire... I dunno. I think I'd choose the more predictable option, assuming you feel that your chances at making driver are good.
Yeah that’s why it’s such a predicament. I have a nearly guaranteed solid job...it’s just that I kinda hate it. I fucked up, UPS has an education reimbursement program and I should have graduated...
Yeah that’s why it’s such a predicament. I have a nearly guaranteed solid job...it’s just that I kinda hate it. I fucked up, UPS has an education reimbursement program and I should have graduated a year ago. Hind sight is a bitch, you only get wiser when you get older and screw up...
I don't think I could get in touch with my parents to discuss before tomorrow morning, since they probably have the most applicable experience and perspective for you, but I can give you my two...
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I don't think I could get in touch with my parents to discuss before tomorrow morning, since they probably have the most applicable experience and perspective for you, but I can give you my two cents as someone who is/was "gifted" and whose older brother was as well.
First off, it's a great starting point that you are hearing this directly from your child and not through behavioral issues at school, since that is what happened with my brother. Things were too easy, he got bored, he did dumb things. Lots of different solutions were tried, including ADHD meds, but what eventually worked for him was twofold: a school aimed entirely at gifted children and grade acceleration.
As far as a separate school goes, I totally recognized that it is a privileged option. My family was able to afford to send my brother and I to one, but it was definitely not without giving up on other things AND having a college fund already secured. That said, if it turns out to be the right fit for your child, many schools in more financially solvent positions than the one I attended (K-8) offer financial aid depending on your situation. It's also possible your school district has a magnet program or something along those lines that is a step above the GT program you are already taking advantage of. Of course none of this may apply to your particular situation, I'm just outlining options I am aware of in case they do. Feel free to ask any questions about my personal experience in a gifted and talented private school if you like.
With grade acceleration goes, there is a non-negligible social cost to being younger then your peers. My brother skipped two grades in middle school, so he started attending high school (boarding/magnet program after Freshman year) at 12, and college at 16, but he is a unique personality, and easily found his tribe wherever he went. This is something to consider, and discuss with your child, but at the same time do not feel like the sky is falling because your child will be in classes with children one or more years older. If it is the right choice for him academically, and your son is serious about it, the social part can be done. The academic advantage here is that it can bring the challenge level of everything up, since it sounds like right now some classes are good or better for him, and others are lacking. The bigger issue with this course of action, or at least the bigger issue when my parents did this for my brother, was that the teacher(s) may strenuously object, with some valid points on the social side, but perhaps also a lot of stuff you may find doesn't hold up well. Think of "It's just not how we do it" kind of reasoning. Then again, that was probably approaching two decades ago now, so YMMV.
There are other, less formal options as well. It's perhaps unlikely given that teachers are probably overworked right now (and are chronically overworked and underpaid in many places), but your son's teachers may be willing to work in some more advanced work, perhaps in the form of individual projects. This is something my wife did when she was young, of her own accord. She's working on a PhD now, so I guess it worked out for her. If teachers are unwilling to cooperate, and you have the time, you may be able to organize something like that at home for your son. Let him pick a topic with some guidance, have him do research on it, again probably with some guidance, and have him present to you (or his class at school if possible) about it. Depending on his interests, it can include to more hands on, science fair type projects as well. I would say the most important thing with this is to make sure it ties in to his interests and gets his buy in. Though I've been lucky to go to great schools, I've definitely had many times when I wasn't so interested in learning, so anything to keep the interest up is a huge plus.
Anyway, I've got to get to bed but I'd be happy to chat more tomorrow, and pull in more information from my family as well if that could help you out.
Sure, I got in touch with my mother, since as a stay at home parent she did much of the work for this. Her response is below, I've edited it lightly for clarity.
Sure, I got in touch with my mother, since as a stay at home parent she did much of the work for this. Her response is below, I've edited it lightly for clarity.
My son responded to you last with very thoughtful responses regarding his and his brother's experiences. He asked me if I could add anything from a parent's perspective. Since your specific question was how to talk to your son's teachers about how he is feeling about school I will address that.
In general it is a good idea to find out how the teacher feels about the pull out program your son is currently in and if they are supportive of gifted education in general. It helps tremendously to have a supportive teacher on your side. When you approach them never use the word "bored". No teacher wants to hear that a child in their class is bored, even if it is true. If the teacher is supportive then I would begin the conversation with questions. "Have you noticed S not paying attention in class? Is he not completing or turning in his work on time?" Or any question that might relate to the issues your son is having in class or with his work. Then listen carefully to the answer and go from there with expressing what you child has said to you about his schoolwork etc.
Your main objective is to get more challenging work for your child while making the teacher feel good about it. Since I don't know what type of learning environment your son is currently in, I am not sure how easy it would be for the teacher to put in more time to challenge your child right now. However, if you start on the right foot now, you may be able to work something out for when things are better. In terms of how to challenge your son, that could take many forms. The teacher could try to implement some form of differentiation for him within his current classroom. This could mean that the teacher could pretest him or all the students on a particular unit and then allow students that passed the test to do more in depth or advanced work. Another option is to ask for subject acceleration. Both my children did that in math and my oldest (when he was in a public elementary school) actually went into a higher grade classroom for science.
One thing to keep in mind, you may be asking for things the school or the teacher have never done before. You may get a lot of pushback from the administration. They like to point out all the areas that a student needs to work as a way to prevent a student from being challenged in the areas where they excel. One thing that did help us show our sons' abilities was to the school was to have them tested. We paid for IQ tests and some achievement testing for both of them. We did this mainly to be sure that we weren't over or under estimating their abilities and to show that they were capable of learning differently than many of their age peers. There are some pitfalls to testing as well. Some school districts will not accept tests from outside providers. Some will only use the tests that they administer to all students. But generally those tests do not show if a child is working above grade level, so they are generally not useful for gifted students. My son pointed out some ways outside of the current school situation that you could provide more challenge.
And there is always home schooling, but you may already be doing a version of that if you are doing remote learning. However, true home schooling would allow your child to work at his own level and pace but it is a big commitment on everyone's part and one we were not prepared to do. There are lots of resources you can access for more information on how to help your child and to talk to other parents experiencing similar issues. Some good online resources are the Davidson Institute for Talent Development (DITD.org) and Hoagies Gifted Education Page (hoagiesgifted.org) are good places to start. Hoagies also has a FB page where you can ask questions. Also most states have a state level Gifted Association.
One thing I should have mentioned earlier is that it is very helpful to know your school districts policy for gifted education and to know what, if anything, the state requires for gifted learning. It is helpful to know what the school is required to do because sometimes they will try to talk parents out of asking for what by law or policy they must do. Conversely, if there is no district policy or state law covering gifted learning where you live, it may be even harder to get accommodations.
The main thing is to do your best to follow your child's interests and provide him with the best challenge and education you can manage. That may not be the perfect situation, frankly no situation is perfect, but it will be the best you can do given your circumstances. Be clear on what you think would be good for your child given his particular strengths and abilities. Don't deny any areas he needs to work on, but don't let them hold him back, just figure out ways to support them. Stress that you want to be a partner with the teacher and the school to provide the challenge your son needs. And do that as long as it works. When it stops working then you may have to look for alternatives. Hope my long answer helped and good luck to your and your talented son. Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.
As someone who found much of the educational portion of school too easy and was bumped up two grades to try to make up for it, school isn't just about educational achievements, nor is it there to...
As someone who found much of the educational portion of school too easy and was bumped up two grades to try to make up for it, school isn't just about educational achievements, nor is it there to provide interesting challenges to the smartest kids. It's also setting the foundation of his social interactions in his peer groups for the rest of his life. If he's also emotionally mature for his age it can help to skip a grade, but if his physical and emotional maturity is in line with his age group, it might be better to keep him with his class and get him additional tutoring or intellectual challenges outside of school. My favorite teacher in all of grade school gave me a high-school geometry textbook to keep me quiet and reading in my fifth grade math class, but I just wasn't developmentally ready to be in a high-school class even if I could manage the material.
If OP's son is in an American public school then the reality of the situation is that the school system is there to make sure students pass a threshold. Short of an excellent private school I...
school isn't just about educational achievements, nor is it there to provide interesting challenges to the smartest kids
If OP's son is in an American public school then the reality of the situation is that the school system is there to make sure students pass a threshold. Short of an excellent private school I don't think you'll find a system that aims to form each mind into its best version.
Even in an excellent private school you still don't get that. There's more flexibility to try to get kids where they need to be (ask me why I was moved ahead two grades) but there's still limits...
Even in an excellent private school you still don't get that. There's more flexibility to try to get kids where they need to be (ask me why I was moved ahead two grades) but there's still limits to the adaptability of any system, especially if the intellectual and social needs of the kid are internally conflicted.
That's a tricky problem. Some private schools can do better job trying to provide a better, more tailored education for most students, but there are limits to what they can offer for an individual...
Short of an excellent private school I don't think you'll find a system that aims to form each mind into its best version.
That's a tricky problem. Some private schools can do better job trying to provide a better, more tailored education for most students, but there are limits to what they can offer for an individual student. Smaller class sizes, and more individual attention, can help, but if the problem is that the curriculum is fundamentally too simple or slow for one or two students, that isn't easily addressed, even for private schools.
I have an alternate perspective on this point. The argument that school was important for "the foundation of his social interactions in his peer groups for the rest of his life" was something that...
I have an alternate perspective on this point. The argument that school was important for "the foundation of his social interactions in his peer groups for the rest of his life" was something that was often brought up as a reason why I should stay in school (one particularly malicious teacher made an entire lesson plan out of it), and it made me increasingly miserable.
Most years I was in school, the students around me were not my peers in the sense of my having anything in common with them. We had entirely different perspectives, different interests, different thoughts around knowledge and learning. I tried to relate to them, and tried to have meaningful social interactions, but it was always forced and awkward. For most of this time, I was not in any special program, or seen as smart. I could just never relate, after a certain superficial point. We would interact in classes to the extent required, and we'd interact socially to some extent when we were together by circumstance, then I'd go home and think about things, and they would go do whatever they did outside of school. Any extracurricular thing I did would be largely similar. We never had meaningful interactions beyond this. We simply enjoyed completely different things, I think. There was very little for us to meaningfully do or talk about. Up to sixth grade, there was one person I have any memory of having meaningful social interactions with.
In sixth and seventh grade, now in the top gifted and talented program in my city, and also in the midst of 90s anti-intellectualism in American popular culture, I did have some peers, but had them at the cost of being in an enormously hostile environment: I now had a handful of friends, in part out of adversity, and an entire school who despised us. I don't know how this misery helped any of us develop social or emotional maturity, beyond the experience of enduring constant abuse.
When I went to college full-time, I was 13, and was also not around my peers. It's true that I also didn't really have much in the way of social interactions or development. But I wouldn't have had those in school either, and in college, I was at least happy. I had as much in common with the other students as I had had in school, and we had largely similar interactions around classes. At that point, I had tried, for eight years, to relate socially to people my age. From those years, there were a total of two people I had any interaction with after no longer being in classes with them. Both had, I think, somewhat similar experiences.
From all this, I expect that there are some oddities to my social development, but I don't think they are necessarily crippling. In my early twenties, I think I became somewhat better at interacting with people my age. It is difficult for me to form close friendships, but it isn't impossible. My partner and I have lived together for years. Though it's perhaps a more conscious endeavour than for others, I have no great difficulty with more distant social interactions, and can reasonably hold together a contentious meeting or be convivial at dinner or host a party, for a few hundred people at times. I did not become a hermit or a pariah by lacking the social interactions in school that people argued were essential.
Thank you for sharing a different perspective. I'm glad we have enough of a diversity of experiences here that suspended can get a number of different perspectives.
Thank you for sharing a different perspective. I'm glad we have enough of a diversity of experiences here that suspended can get a number of different perspectives.
You seem like the kind of person that already has this covered, but growing up most of my intellectual effort was spent on stuff that never got covered in school. My parents supported my hobbies...
You seem like the kind of person that already has this covered, but growing up most of my intellectual effort was spent on stuff that never got covered in school. My parents supported my hobbies (electrical circuits, web development, woodworking) and now I work as a software developer.
I was like this when I was a kid. My experience was that I was uninterested in a lot of classwork because it was easy and I didn't put any effort into learning material in school. I ended up...
I was like this when I was a kid. My experience was that I was uninterested in a lot of classwork because it was easy and I didn't put any effort into learning material in school. I ended up interested in academic material for the first time when I took a programming class, and then found what I liked in college after a mathematician showed me some proofs (while eliding a few details since I was inexperienced in the field) and I began to understand what mathematical beauty is. I now hold a degree in mathematics.
I got lucky when I found mathematics. It was only circumstance that led up to meeting someone truly passionate about the subject and having them show me why they felt that way. I can't tell you what will spark passion for a subject in your son, everyone is different and having a talent for something does not mean that he will choose to pursue it. I can say this - encourage him to explore his interests and if something satisfies him intellectually then support him in finding out more about it.
And now, a warning - if you force him to study things on top of what he already must do for school, he will likely see it as more mind numbing work and it will serve to push him away from academia. I experienced this myself. I cannot imagine it's anything other than a balancing act to try encouraging him to find a subject he is passionate for and doing it in a way that does not result in discouragement.
I hope someone can elaborate on this more eloquently than myself, I don't feel I've done a good job of conveying exactly what I intend.
I should caveat this by mentioning that I was incredibly fortunate to go to schools that were actually wonderfully flexible about these things and were populated with students that weren't the...
I should caveat this by mentioning that I was incredibly fortunate to go to schools that were actually wonderfully flexible about these things and were populated with students that weren't the stereotype of absolutely awful tweens and teens. So bear that in mind if the school staff or students might actually be unwelcoming.
Others mentioned skipping a grade, and I think it's fairly useful and it's one of the easiest solutions to accommodate (even if there's often resistance). I can't speak much to the counterfactual of my experience, but I think there's likely to be social difficulties staying at the current grade or skipping up, so erring on the side of providing some challenge seems worthwhile. At age 11, I don't know that I would recommend trying to do more than one year, since the looming effects of adolescence are likely to be more of a social issue the larger the age gap is.
One thing that I think was very useful for me was additional targeted acceleration, e.g. taking just one or a few subjects at an even higher grade level (in classes already being taught). It provides more challenge, but can help maintain a primary social group with students closer to his age. There's also some potential social benefits from spending some time with more mature students, though this could be a matter of luck.
Relatedly, don't be afraid of allowing some of his classes to be easy. Some of that is just allowing more mental energy to be put elsewhere, some of that is sharing in the social experience of those mandatory classes that are made for all students, and some of that is to build some habit of doing work even when it's boring. (Presuming it's not excessive.)
Mentally engaging extracurricular activities. I think I might recommend encouraging options that have some sort of an actual measure of success, e.g. programming, chess, academic competitions, etc. Which is not to say that other hobbies aren't valuable, but when he's expressing a lack of challenge, something that presents an actual possibility of failure might help with building good habits more than learning something in an undirected manner.
I remember being in that situation well. Others have given some great ideas to chew on. I'll take a different tactic and give the impromptu speech I wish my Dad gave me: I get it. Public schools...
I remember being in that situation well. Others have given some great ideas to chew on. I'll take a different tactic and give the impromptu speech I wish my Dad gave me:
I get it. Public schools suck. They've transitioned towards mostly indoctrinating you into the workforce and bowing to authority instead of teaching you how to learn, reason and research.
That is not to say they are useless because, more than anything else, school is about learning to socialize with your peers.
So, do the bare minimum that's needed to not hamper your future prospects (a B+ is a good target). After that, make your own learning and fun. If you like the matter but the subject is too easy, the March forward and don't let them hold you back. Learn to help teach the other kids who might not find the work so easy, and it'll put pressure on the teacher to go faster. For English, read the assigned reading than follow up with our own.
Take the high road if you will.
Also, embrace the arts and crafts. There's no such thing as 'too easy' for painting and carpentry.
I apologize for the extremely long comment: your question made me spent quite a while reminiscing. Going to a different school almost every year until college for various reasons, I had a wide...
I apologize for the extremely long comment: your question made me spent quite a while reminiscing.
Going to a different school almost every year until college for various reasons, I had a wide variety of experiences with different ways of handling gifted and talented students, from simply being sent to the library every day, to a standard mixed class with some G&T students and extra attention, to taking community college classes at night, to an experimental semi-independent/collaborative mixed-grade class, to the horror I explain in another comment. After that last horror, I found a way to take a high-school equivalency exam despite my age, dropped out of school at the beginning of eighth grade, and enrolled full-time at a community college with a guaranteed transfer program to a university, where I finished a degree in physics; I then went off to graduate school, and am now a researcher.
I don't know the best advice to give. However, I also feel that, to the extent that there is advice to give, the advice should be more toward the child involved than the parent or the teacher. At least for me, and others I know like me, I feel that learning how to learn on one's own, and satiate one's own desire for knowledge, is important, as is having the freedom to do so. The latter, however, can often be the harder thing, because the work that is "too easy" still takes time, and can become a significant impediment.
If you don't feel satisfied by material, you need to find ways of learning, yourself, that will satisfy you. You can't expect a school, or a teacher, to be able to individually tailor everything to make it challenging for you. You're going to be better at understanding what works and doesn't work for you than others are. There are an enormous number of options now, but even in the past there have been as well.
If you find something "too easy", then figure why you are unsatisfied with it. Is it because you aren't satisfied by the explanations that are given, because they seem too simplified? Then find ways of learning the material more rigorously. Is it because you feel you understand the material already, but keep having it reiterated? Then find other things to learn, or, again, more rigorous or detailed treatments. Quite a bit of scholarly work is just thinking about the same topics at more and more rigorous and complex levels. When you don't understand something in your searches, that just provides more opportunities for learning about other things.
There are countless books, sources, and references available. There are now vast troves of material online. I found community college and university classes wonderful; many university courses now have quite a bit of their material easily-available online as well. Find what works best for you. This isn't always obvious: I found that I was far more satisfied by terse physics textbooks like Landau, for example, and had an easier time understanding them, than understanding textbooks that tried to make the material more accessible. There are ample opportunities for discussions online now, too. University libraries used to be wonderful places, and at many universities, were practically open to everyone who used them respectfully: you could spend all your time in them, studying at the desks amongst the stacks (there's some name for them that I don't remember, the type of university library desk with side walls so you can entirely block out the outside world), and every time you read something you didn't understand, or wanted to know more about, there was another book waiting somewhere. Many of these spaces have now been destroyed, sadly, but if you can find them, they are wonderlands. I still love working in them, when I can find them.
Or are you unsatisfied because you want to be challenged? Then search for things that do interest and challenge you. There's no point in trying to make things that aren't challenging for you challenging for the sake of being challenging: try to find ways of making those things take less time instead.
The other side of this, however, and the part that does affect parents and teachers, is having the freedom to be able to satisfy one's desire to learn things.
The problem with something being "too easy" is that easy things still take time. Additionally, the American school system ensures that students spend an enormous amount of time in classes (try comparing them to community college classes on the same topics), whether or not they find those classes intellectually satisfying, and have an enormous amount of homework on a daily basis. Often the easy and unsatisfying things can end up taking up so much time that they make it difficult to do actually satisfying things. I often just wanted to be left alone, and to have room to learn on my own rather than feeling trapped and stressed by work that was easy to understand but burdensome to do.
I was able to take community college courses when I was around your son's age in part because the class I was in during the day was an open, mixed-grade classroom where we largely just did what we wanted. I could read and do work on my courses, and that replaced, rather than added to, the science curriculum I was learning in school; when I was unsatisfied by other material, I could just stop doing it, and show the teacher what I was doing instead. In sixth grade, I at one point just asked if I could be excused from needing to take science, and allowed to spend the class time with my own books in the library instead: it was one of the few times I was happy that year. For much of sixth and seventh grade, however, I simply had too much easy work, and too much time spent in unsatisfying classes, to allow me to learn, and it made me miserable. Even for the one class I actually felt satisfied by, Latin, I was unsatisfied with the amount of time I could spend on it, because the busy work of other classes simply took up too much time.
University made me far happier in part because it didn't force me to waste time. Classes had reasonable lengths and frequency, unlike secondary school, and gave me far more time to study on my own, especially as my department pushed its more devoted students to take fewer classes for just this purpose, and would pad our credits with research and study courses. When I needed instruction, and help, it was there for me; when I felt unsatisfied by a course entirely, I could petition to take something more rigorous, or could petition out of a requirement entirely, if I could show that I already knew the material. There was the understanding that courses were meant to teach us, not force us to do work or show up. If I needed to skip a lecture because I needed the time for understanding the material from a different approach, that was fine, so long as I did well on tests. And usually, tests and assignments were meant to actually test us, not just give us work to do every day, or try to teach us the material.
So: if your son is like me, it may be that he would benefit not from being given more to do, but less, so that he can have time to do things that he finds satisfying. There's no shortage of material he can find, but there can be a shortage of time. If he can convince his school that he should be given less work, and more time, in exchange, for example, for showing them, or you, what he is learning from time to time, he might be far happier.
However, I think that all of this can be very different for different students: they have different interests, motivations, aspirations, and ways of learning. I have always simply been obsessed by knowledge. Given the choice of what to do as a child, I would always choose to learn more: being unable to do so would make me unhappy. I struggled with this when I started living by myself, and no longer had any outside influence to ensure that I ate and slept. The concerns that others point out about work ethic were different for me, because learning, and struggling to figure challenging things out, was not, and is not, work for me, but what I enjoy. I need a work ethic to do the things that keep me away from research, and I've found a number of researchers who feel similarly.
There's also a question of what the point of gifted and talented education, or learning more, earlier, actually is. I went the route I did because it made me happier. I don't know that it made me a significantly better researcher, or more successful. For others I know who took similar routes on their own initiative, I think it was largely the same. But, in my traumatic sixth and seventh grade experience, there were three of us who were friends primarily because we were in the most advanced set of classes. Of the three, two of us were miserable, went the early college route, and were much happier as a result. The third left for a year, but went back to the high school connected to the program, got through it despite the unfulfilling work, and is, as far as I know, both happy and successful.
But he, I think, turned out to be in the program because he was ambitious and competitive, not because of his desire for knowledge and interest in all the material (my other friend points out that our mutual friend always had better grades than the two of us in math, and yet was, in hindsight, inarguably the weakest of the three in understanding math, stopping at calculus while we both have math-adjacent publications: his ambition and competitiveness got him through, while we struggled with the unfulfilling nature of the classes). For him, I think, the diligence and work ethic was more important than the understanding. On the other side, I've known several people who were in G&T programs, or even at community college very early, more out of a desire to be successful, or because of pressure from their families, and I think that those sorts of students become lost when told to learn things on their own.
I was "gifted", at one point. Make this kid work for something. Work ethic suffers when things are easy, which becomes a problem later on when things become less easy. And they will become less easy, as initial talent can only take you so far.
I don't know what you can do with regards to working with the school... but you can maybe come up with your own supplemental lesson plans. Maybe look into some college curriculum? Sure, hit on STEM subjects... but don't neglect the humanities.
Either way, make sure some effort is involved. The more your son can get by on natural talent, the more averse he may become to putting in actual work.
In my experience, anyway.
I would advise caution with this sort of advice. Be especially careful with taking this approach in discussions with schools. I don't necessarily disagree with the intentions, but it is easy, and often convenient, for them to be be misinterpreted and implemented horribly. I went, for 6th and 7th grade, to a gifted program in a public school district that seemed built around implementing a warped understanding of the ideas in this comment by any means, and it was probably the most traumatic and abusive experience of my life.
It is easy to ensure that students, no matter how talented, feel challenged by work. You simply give them more work to do, regardless of what that work is, until they are challenged not by the content but by the amount. This is far less work for teachers and schools than coming up with an intellectually stimulating curriculum, especially when those teachers are often given gifted and talented classes as an addition to their usual classes, meaning that they are forced to choose between increasing their own workload to satisfy often very demanding students, or taking the far easier route.
In our case, if I recall correctly, we were in school for between 7 to 8 hours per day, five days a week, and had five classes, each of which told us we should expect to have about 2 hours of homework per night, almost none of which could be done at school. Objections that the overall schedule expected of us was not feasible were dismissed by noting that it was our choice to be in the program, that we needed to choose which classes to prioritize, or that other classes should reduce their homework.
Homework was not intellectually challenging, it was just horrific busy work. In some classes, this quite literally meant just giving us more---often some multiple of questions---of the same homework assigned to other classes the teacher had: for example, giving questions 1-10 at the end of a lesson in a textbook to other classes, and questions 1-40 to gifted classes. In others, it meant bizarrely pointless rote work: the most absurd example that has always persisted in my mind was an assignment in English, which was quite simple: make a list of every simile and simple metaphor in a several hundred page novel. Don't analyse the use of metaphor or simile by the author: literally produce a spreadsheet reproducing every sentence in the novel that contains a simile or metaphor, and list what words it uses for comparison in the case of a simile. In yet other cases, homework was simply meant to be impossible: my mother once had a frustrated argument with a science teacher who would show educational videos to his classes on days when the gifted program sent its students elsewhere, and then assign all of his students, including the gifted students, worksheets asking questions specific to those videos. My mother argued, unsuccessfully, that we should be allowed to watch the videos we were assigned homework about.
Classes were largely built around going through the homework of the previous night, or repeating the same material taught to everyone else, and then using the remaining time for rants about unrelated topics, or, in some cases, actual lesson plans built around telling students the horrors of dropping out and going to college earlier, seemingly built in response to my increasing discussion of this option.
I often comment that when, after 7th grade, I dropped out of middle school, and went to college instead, I did so because college was easier. This is not untrue, in some sense: college classes had more intellectually challenging material, but were, of course, designed to teach the material, rather than being designed to keep students working as much as possible. I went from often getting B and C grades in middle school---simply as a result of being unable to complete all the work, and being physically and emotionally exhausted---to being toward the top of all of my classes. I also didn't feel like I was putting in that much actual work or effort, because the work I was being asked to do was work that I actually enjoyed doing, work that I had been crying out for years to be able to do.
I think I'd actually argue against coming up with supplemental lesson plans: instead, especially with so much material being so easily accessible, helping him find material himself to learn, and instilling a sense of self-motivation and self-direction in learning, might be a better option.
Can confirm; was "gifted", and dropped out of college because I never developed proper study skills in high school.
Can confirm, was "gifted", and dropped out of high school because I never developed proper study skills in grade school.
How are things going?
These days? Totally fine. I bummed around doing retail and reading every other moment I could until I saw the dead look in the eyes of the people who were 40 or 50 and still working big box store retail and decided to go to college. Fell in with a good crowd there who could overlook my lack of proper socialization (theater nerds, god bless them every one.) College degree by thirty, own/run my own small business before forty. I've probably "squandered" my potential, but I feel ok about how things turned out.
Is there still hope for a 32-year old college dropout working a very unfulfilling and low paying blue collar job?
I'd say yes. I did it a few years younger than than you, but the basic thrust was this:
*1: full time work and evening/day off classes at a community college, focusing on classes that would count as transferrable to the public state college system. FAFSA grants to cover school costs, work to cover living. No life, but also no debt. This part took me four years, but meant that I was fitting it in around my life. If it had turned out to not be for me, or something different came along, I wouldn't be trapped, forced to finish it out.
*2: part time work and full class load at a state college, with some student loans to cover the difference. This bit I needed to get done as fast as possible, and it's only because of class scheduling that it took two years. If I could have done it in 3 semesters I would have, to save on the tuition/living costs. Part time work made it more palatable, but I still ended up with $14k of student loan debt. That's still not bad, especially comparing my pre and post college pay.
The standard disclaimers apply: this is what worked for me, that was most of a decade ago, tuition prices are different now, who knows what school is like with the pandemic... but if you don't like what you're doing, is it more tolerable to try and make a change and have it maybe not work. or just buckle down and do that unfulfilling job until you retire or die? Lots of schooling can be done around your life even if you have other commitments, and it's not easy, but it's possible to have an easier, more interesting life afterwards.
I’ll tell you the stress and fear has never really been about: can I go back to school? It’s always been, who is hiring a now 36-year-old graduate with a spotty work history (best I have is my current 5 years and counting at UPS) and zero work history in their chosen field?
I’m trying to make driver at UPS and it’s a solid 6 figure job with a heap of benefits and retirement safety, but I tried it last year (got kicked and have to wait to try again) and it was tough and I knew it would suck the life out of me and make me a miserable cunt, financially comfortable but miserable.
I’m engaged and I want to do right by my fiancée too.
I can't make the decision for you but I can tell you this -- if you do go back to school you need to prioritize a school/degree with a good co-op/internship program.
You'll still need to break into the industry without experience but you'll have a few things going for you -- your school's co-op program to help find opportunities and refine your resume/interview prep as well as companies hiring for internships is exponentially lower risk than hiring for a full time position. It's a low cost trial period for them where they get to offload some busy work to you and you get some experience. So they're a lot more willing to give you a chance.
Then after you graduate you can leverage your internships to get a full time position.
Yeah, I get that. Part of why I run my own company and haven't given it up even in the lean years is because of a fear of getting into the corporate machine, or alternately trying and failing. I will say that choosing a profession that you can do independently and still make decent pay is going to leave you with many more options.
If you can get a job making six figures, benefits, and retirement, it's hard to say you shouldn't take that, but if the job is hard and/or unfulfilling it'll be all the more important that you have a life outside of it that makes you happy and fulfilled. Education is going to take years to accomplish and longer to pay off and if you can get a job that will pay more sooner and let you retire... I dunno. I think I'd choose the more predictable option, assuming you feel that your chances at making driver are good.
Yeah that’s why it’s such a predicament. I have a nearly guaranteed solid job...it’s just that I kinda hate it. I fucked up, UPS has an education reimbursement program and I should have graduated a year ago. Hind sight is a bitch, you only get wiser when you get older and screw up...
I don't think I could get in touch with my parents to discuss before tomorrow morning, since they probably have the most applicable experience and perspective for you, but I can give you my two cents as someone who is/was "gifted" and whose older brother was as well.
First off, it's a great starting point that you are hearing this directly from your child and not through behavioral issues at school, since that is what happened with my brother. Things were too easy, he got bored, he did dumb things. Lots of different solutions were tried, including ADHD meds, but what eventually worked for him was twofold: a school aimed entirely at gifted children and grade acceleration.
As far as a separate school goes, I totally recognized that it is a privileged option. My family was able to afford to send my brother and I to one, but it was definitely not without giving up on other things AND having a college fund already secured. That said, if it turns out to be the right fit for your child, many schools in more financially solvent positions than the one I attended (K-8) offer financial aid depending on your situation. It's also possible your school district has a magnet program or something along those lines that is a step above the GT program you are already taking advantage of. Of course none of this may apply to your particular situation, I'm just outlining options I am aware of in case they do. Feel free to ask any questions about my personal experience in a gifted and talented private school if you like.
With grade acceleration goes, there is a non-negligible social cost to being younger then your peers. My brother skipped two grades in middle school, so he started attending high school (boarding/magnet program after Freshman year) at 12, and college at 16, but he is a unique personality, and easily found his tribe wherever he went. This is something to consider, and discuss with your child, but at the same time do not feel like the sky is falling because your child will be in classes with children one or more years older. If it is the right choice for him academically, and your son is serious about it, the social part can be done. The academic advantage here is that it can bring the challenge level of everything up, since it sounds like right now some classes are good or better for him, and others are lacking. The bigger issue with this course of action, or at least the bigger issue when my parents did this for my brother, was that the teacher(s) may strenuously object, with some valid points on the social side, but perhaps also a lot of stuff you may find doesn't hold up well. Think of "It's just not how we do it" kind of reasoning. Then again, that was probably approaching two decades ago now, so YMMV.
There are other, less formal options as well. It's perhaps unlikely given that teachers are probably overworked right now (and are chronically overworked and underpaid in many places), but your son's teachers may be willing to work in some more advanced work, perhaps in the form of individual projects. This is something my wife did when she was young, of her own accord. She's working on a PhD now, so I guess it worked out for her. If teachers are unwilling to cooperate, and you have the time, you may be able to organize something like that at home for your son. Let him pick a topic with some guidance, have him do research on it, again probably with some guidance, and have him present to you (or his class at school if possible) about it. Depending on his interests, it can include to more hands on, science fair type projects as well. I would say the most important thing with this is to make sure it ties in to his interests and gets his buy in. Though I've been lucky to go to great schools, I've definitely had many times when I wasn't so interested in learning, so anything to keep the interest up is a huge plus.
Anyway, I've got to get to bed but I'd be happy to chat more tomorrow, and pull in more information from my family as well if that could help you out.
Sure, I got in touch with my mother, since as a stay at home parent she did much of the work for this. Her response is below, I've edited it lightly for clarity.
As someone who found much of the educational portion of school too easy and was bumped up two grades to try to make up for it, school isn't just about educational achievements, nor is it there to provide interesting challenges to the smartest kids. It's also setting the foundation of his social interactions in his peer groups for the rest of his life. If he's also emotionally mature for his age it can help to skip a grade, but if his physical and emotional maturity is in line with his age group, it might be better to keep him with his class and get him additional tutoring or intellectual challenges outside of school. My favorite teacher in all of grade school gave me a high-school geometry textbook to keep me quiet and reading in my fifth grade math class, but I just wasn't developmentally ready to be in a high-school class even if I could manage the material.
If OP's son is in an American public school then the reality of the situation is that the school system is there to make sure students pass a threshold. Short of an excellent private school I don't think you'll find a system that aims to form each mind into its best version.
Even in an excellent private school you still don't get that. There's more flexibility to try to get kids where they need to be (ask me why I was moved ahead two grades) but there's still limits to the adaptability of any system, especially if the intellectual and social needs of the kid are internally conflicted.
Thanks for sharing your insight. I'm on the outside looking in.
That's a tricky problem. Some private schools can do better job trying to provide a better, more tailored education for most students, but there are limits to what they can offer for an individual student. Smaller class sizes, and more individual attention, can help, but if the problem is that the curriculum is fundamentally too simple or slow for one or two students, that isn't easily addressed, even for private schools.
I have an alternate perspective on this point. The argument that school was important for "the foundation of his social interactions in his peer groups for the rest of his life" was something that was often brought up as a reason why I should stay in school (one particularly malicious teacher made an entire lesson plan out of it), and it made me increasingly miserable.
Most years I was in school, the students around me were not my peers in the sense of my having anything in common with them. We had entirely different perspectives, different interests, different thoughts around knowledge and learning. I tried to relate to them, and tried to have meaningful social interactions, but it was always forced and awkward. For most of this time, I was not in any special program, or seen as smart. I could just never relate, after a certain superficial point. We would interact in classes to the extent required, and we'd interact socially to some extent when we were together by circumstance, then I'd go home and think about things, and they would go do whatever they did outside of school. Any extracurricular thing I did would be largely similar. We never had meaningful interactions beyond this. We simply enjoyed completely different things, I think. There was very little for us to meaningfully do or talk about. Up to sixth grade, there was one person I have any memory of having meaningful social interactions with.
In sixth and seventh grade, now in the top gifted and talented program in my city, and also in the midst of 90s anti-intellectualism in American popular culture, I did have some peers, but had them at the cost of being in an enormously hostile environment: I now had a handful of friends, in part out of adversity, and an entire school who despised us. I don't know how this misery helped any of us develop social or emotional maturity, beyond the experience of enduring constant abuse.
When I went to college full-time, I was 13, and was also not around my peers. It's true that I also didn't really have much in the way of social interactions or development. But I wouldn't have had those in school either, and in college, I was at least happy. I had as much in common with the other students as I had had in school, and we had largely similar interactions around classes. At that point, I had tried, for eight years, to relate socially to people my age. From those years, there were a total of two people I had any interaction with after no longer being in classes with them. Both had, I think, somewhat similar experiences.
From all this, I expect that there are some oddities to my social development, but I don't think they are necessarily crippling. In my early twenties, I think I became somewhat better at interacting with people my age. It is difficult for me to form close friendships, but it isn't impossible. My partner and I have lived together for years. Though it's perhaps a more conscious endeavour than for others, I have no great difficulty with more distant social interactions, and can reasonably hold together a contentious meeting or be convivial at dinner or host a party, for a few hundred people at times. I did not become a hermit or a pariah by lacking the social interactions in school that people argued were essential.
Thank you for sharing a different perspective. I'm glad we have enough of a diversity of experiences here that suspended can get a number of different perspectives.
You seem like the kind of person that already has this covered, but growing up most of my intellectual effort was spent on stuff that never got covered in school. My parents supported my hobbies (electrical circuits, web development, woodworking) and now I work as a software developer.
I was like this when I was a kid. My experience was that I was uninterested in a lot of classwork because it was easy and I didn't put any effort into learning material in school. I ended up interested in academic material for the first time when I took a programming class, and then found what I liked in college after a mathematician showed me some proofs (while eliding a few details since I was inexperienced in the field) and I began to understand what mathematical beauty is. I now hold a degree in mathematics.
I got lucky when I found mathematics. It was only circumstance that led up to meeting someone truly passionate about the subject and having them show me why they felt that way. I can't tell you what will spark passion for a subject in your son, everyone is different and having a talent for something does not mean that he will choose to pursue it. I can say this - encourage him to explore his interests and if something satisfies him intellectually then support him in finding out more about it.
And now, a warning - if you force him to study things on top of what he already must do for school, he will likely see it as more mind numbing work and it will serve to push him away from academia. I experienced this myself. I cannot imagine it's anything other than a balancing act to try encouraging him to find a subject he is passionate for and doing it in a way that does not result in discouragement.
I hope someone can elaborate on this more eloquently than myself, I don't feel I've done a good job of conveying exactly what I intend.
I should caveat this by mentioning that I was incredibly fortunate to go to schools that were actually wonderfully flexible about these things and were populated with students that weren't the stereotype of absolutely awful tweens and teens. So bear that in mind if the school staff or students might actually be unwelcoming.
I remember being in that situation well. Others have given some great ideas to chew on. I'll take a different tactic and give the impromptu speech I wish my Dad gave me:
I get it. Public schools suck. They've transitioned towards mostly indoctrinating you into the workforce and bowing to authority instead of teaching you how to learn, reason and research.
That is not to say they are useless because, more than anything else, school is about learning to socialize with your peers.
So, do the bare minimum that's needed to not hamper your future prospects (a B+ is a good target). After that, make your own learning and fun. If you like the matter but the subject is too easy, the March forward and don't let them hold you back. Learn to help teach the other kids who might not find the work so easy, and it'll put pressure on the teacher to go faster. For English, read the assigned reading than follow up with our own.
Take the high road if you will.
Also, embrace the arts and crafts. There's no such thing as 'too easy' for painting and carpentry.
I apologize for the extremely long comment: your question made me spent quite a while reminiscing.
Going to a different school almost every year until college for various reasons, I had a wide variety of experiences with different ways of handling gifted and talented students, from simply being sent to the library every day, to a standard mixed class with some G&T students and extra attention, to taking community college classes at night, to an experimental semi-independent/collaborative mixed-grade class, to the horror I explain in another comment. After that last horror, I found a way to take a high-school equivalency exam despite my age, dropped out of school at the beginning of eighth grade, and enrolled full-time at a community college with a guaranteed transfer program to a university, where I finished a degree in physics; I then went off to graduate school, and am now a researcher.
I don't know the best advice to give. However, I also feel that, to the extent that there is advice to give, the advice should be more toward the child involved than the parent or the teacher. At least for me, and others I know like me, I feel that learning how to learn on one's own, and satiate one's own desire for knowledge, is important, as is having the freedom to do so. The latter, however, can often be the harder thing, because the work that is "too easy" still takes time, and can become a significant impediment.
If you don't feel satisfied by material, you need to find ways of learning, yourself, that will satisfy you. You can't expect a school, or a teacher, to be able to individually tailor everything to make it challenging for you. You're going to be better at understanding what works and doesn't work for you than others are. There are an enormous number of options now, but even in the past there have been as well.
If you find something "too easy", then figure why you are unsatisfied with it. Is it because you aren't satisfied by the explanations that are given, because they seem too simplified? Then find ways of learning the material more rigorously. Is it because you feel you understand the material already, but keep having it reiterated? Then find other things to learn, or, again, more rigorous or detailed treatments. Quite a bit of scholarly work is just thinking about the same topics at more and more rigorous and complex levels. When you don't understand something in your searches, that just provides more opportunities for learning about other things.
There are countless books, sources, and references available. There are now vast troves of material online. I found community college and university classes wonderful; many university courses now have quite a bit of their material easily-available online as well. Find what works best for you. This isn't always obvious: I found that I was far more satisfied by terse physics textbooks like Landau, for example, and had an easier time understanding them, than understanding textbooks that tried to make the material more accessible. There are ample opportunities for discussions online now, too. University libraries used to be wonderful places, and at many universities, were practically open to everyone who used them respectfully: you could spend all your time in them, studying at the desks amongst the stacks (there's some name for them that I don't remember, the type of university library desk with side walls so you can entirely block out the outside world), and every time you read something you didn't understand, or wanted to know more about, there was another book waiting somewhere. Many of these spaces have now been destroyed, sadly, but if you can find them, they are wonderlands. I still love working in them, when I can find them.
Or are you unsatisfied because you want to be challenged? Then search for things that do interest and challenge you. There's no point in trying to make things that aren't challenging for you challenging for the sake of being challenging: try to find ways of making those things take less time instead.
The other side of this, however, and the part that does affect parents and teachers, is having the freedom to be able to satisfy one's desire to learn things.
The problem with something being "too easy" is that easy things still take time. Additionally, the American school system ensures that students spend an enormous amount of time in classes (try comparing them to community college classes on the same topics), whether or not they find those classes intellectually satisfying, and have an enormous amount of homework on a daily basis. Often the easy and unsatisfying things can end up taking up so much time that they make it difficult to do actually satisfying things. I often just wanted to be left alone, and to have room to learn on my own rather than feeling trapped and stressed by work that was easy to understand but burdensome to do.
I was able to take community college courses when I was around your son's age in part because the class I was in during the day was an open, mixed-grade classroom where we largely just did what we wanted. I could read and do work on my courses, and that replaced, rather than added to, the science curriculum I was learning in school; when I was unsatisfied by other material, I could just stop doing it, and show the teacher what I was doing instead. In sixth grade, I at one point just asked if I could be excused from needing to take science, and allowed to spend the class time with my own books in the library instead: it was one of the few times I was happy that year. For much of sixth and seventh grade, however, I simply had too much easy work, and too much time spent in unsatisfying classes, to allow me to learn, and it made me miserable. Even for the one class I actually felt satisfied by, Latin, I was unsatisfied with the amount of time I could spend on it, because the busy work of other classes simply took up too much time.
University made me far happier in part because it didn't force me to waste time. Classes had reasonable lengths and frequency, unlike secondary school, and gave me far more time to study on my own, especially as my department pushed its more devoted students to take fewer classes for just this purpose, and would pad our credits with research and study courses. When I needed instruction, and help, it was there for me; when I felt unsatisfied by a course entirely, I could petition to take something more rigorous, or could petition out of a requirement entirely, if I could show that I already knew the material. There was the understanding that courses were meant to teach us, not force us to do work or show up. If I needed to skip a lecture because I needed the time for understanding the material from a different approach, that was fine, so long as I did well on tests. And usually, tests and assignments were meant to actually test us, not just give us work to do every day, or try to teach us the material.
So: if your son is like me, it may be that he would benefit not from being given more to do, but less, so that he can have time to do things that he finds satisfying. There's no shortage of material he can find, but there can be a shortage of time. If he can convince his school that he should be given less work, and more time, in exchange, for example, for showing them, or you, what he is learning from time to time, he might be far happier.
However, I think that all of this can be very different for different students: they have different interests, motivations, aspirations, and ways of learning. I have always simply been obsessed by knowledge. Given the choice of what to do as a child, I would always choose to learn more: being unable to do so would make me unhappy. I struggled with this when I started living by myself, and no longer had any outside influence to ensure that I ate and slept. The concerns that others point out about work ethic were different for me, because learning, and struggling to figure challenging things out, was not, and is not, work for me, but what I enjoy. I need a work ethic to do the things that keep me away from research, and I've found a number of researchers who feel similarly.
There's also a question of what the point of gifted and talented education, or learning more, earlier, actually is. I went the route I did because it made me happier. I don't know that it made me a significantly better researcher, or more successful. For others I know who took similar routes on their own initiative, I think it was largely the same. But, in my traumatic sixth and seventh grade experience, there were three of us who were friends primarily because we were in the most advanced set of classes. Of the three, two of us were miserable, went the early college route, and were much happier as a result. The third left for a year, but went back to the high school connected to the program, got through it despite the unfulfilling work, and is, as far as I know, both happy and successful.
But he, I think, turned out to be in the program because he was ambitious and competitive, not because of his desire for knowledge and interest in all the material (my other friend points out that our mutual friend always had better grades than the two of us in math, and yet was, in hindsight, inarguably the weakest of the three in understanding math, stopping at calculus while we both have math-adjacent publications: his ambition and competitiveness got him through, while we struggled with the unfulfilling nature of the classes). For him, I think, the diligence and work ethic was more important than the understanding. On the other side, I've known several people who were in G&T programs, or even at community college very early, more out of a desire to be successful, or because of pressure from their families, and I think that those sorts of students become lost when told to learn things on their own.