Some things I wish

Sometimes I wish I could just put Z into a good public school and she was just smart enough to get all A's and be at the head of her class and get be editor of the school newspaper and become the valedictorian and win a scholarship and be voted "most likely to succeed."

But research shows that those kids are usually MG or at most HG. There is a socially optimal intelligence. It is those who would be a bit challenged to do the above.

But can a kid really be happy, and appropriately stimulated and challenged working several grade levels below their true ability? Should they "coast" even if they had the temperament to be satisfied by that? Do you really think that is the right thing to do?

Sometimes I look a schools with beautiful campuses and interesting course catalogs and think "Wouldn't it be nice...?"

But then I look at the end of year standards for the grade that Z would be entering this fall. It has stuff like:

blend two to four sounds into a recognizable word (e.g., /c/a/t/ = cat; /f/l/a/t/=flat)
read common word families (spill, fill, gill, etc.)
understand, count, read, write, and use numbers up to 100
demonstrate the meaning of addition and subtraction and use these operations to solve problems
Count by 2s, 5s, and 10s to 100

And I just know that Z is not going to be satisfied being at the head of that class. It is not just a matter of boredom either. Spending twelve years in a woefully inadequate environment can do all sorts of things to you emotionally not to mention academically.

Not that I would ever want to change Z. The storybook school life is not for her, she will have a totally different story to tell.