When I got to 5th grade, my parents homeschooled me, because I got into trouble all the time at school, complained loudly all the time about how much I hated it, and all my teachers would tell my parents “That kid just really doesn’t like school.” I didn’t have nearly the dedication to teach myself, and my parents could only devote so much time to teaching me, but the standards to which the school district held me were ridiculously low. When I resumed normal schooling in 9th grade, the only subject I was behind in was the formal study of grammar, which I never seemed to need. I was still ahead in math. I actually got to “part-time” school, which meant I would go into the public school for a couple of classes (the only classes I liked), the “gifted and talented” program, later renamed to “extended learning program,” and the school band, so I wasn’t completely isolated from contact with people besides friends and family. Basically, while I was in elementary school, my strategy was “Don’t cope, just be miserable.”
I don’t know why you are asking LessWrong. Most of us, like me, probably were not rationalists when we were kids, don’t remember being kids very clearly, and haven’t put any thought into or done any experimentation on the problem since we escaped it. My mom later became an elementary school counselor’s aid or something like that. I could ask for her opinion, if you want.
When I got to 5th grade, my parents homeschooled me, because I got into trouble all the time at school, complained loudly all the time about how much I hated it, and all my teachers would tell my parents “That kid just really doesn’t like school.” I didn’t have nearly the dedication to teach myself, and my parents could only devote so much time to teaching me, but the standards to which the school district held me were ridiculously low. When I resumed normal schooling in 9th grade, the only subject I was behind in was the formal study of grammar, which I never seemed to need. I was still ahead in math. I actually got to “part-time” school, which meant I would go into the public school for a couple of classes (the only classes I liked), the “gifted and talented” program, later renamed to “extended learning program,” and the school band, so I wasn’t completely isolated from contact with people besides friends and family. Basically, while I was in elementary school, my strategy was “Don’t cope, just be miserable.”
I don’t know why you are asking LessWrong. Most of us, like me, probably were not rationalists when we were kids, don’t remember being kids very clearly, and haven’t put any thought into or done any experimentation on the problem since we escaped it. My mom later became an elementary school counselor’s aid or something like that. I could ask for her opinion, if you want.