aspera comments on Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school - Less Wrong

10 Post author: James_Miller 09 October 2013 07:19PM

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Comment author: aspera 10 October 2013 09:40:21PM *  4 points [-]

My parents stopped me from skipping a grade, and apart from a few math tricks, we didn't work on additional material at home. I fell into a trap of "minimum effort for maximum grade," and got really good at guessing the teacher's password. The story didn't change until graduate school, when I was unable to meet the minimum requirements without working, and that eventually led me to seek out fun challenges on my own.

I now have a young son of my own, and will not make the same mistake. I'm going to make sure he expects to fail sometimes, and that I praise his efforts to go beyond what's required. No idea if it will work.