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Comment by DANmode | Hacker News Reader

Why?

Take a second to think through why it might be bad for a 2nd grader to seek high schoolers as social peers.

Take a second to think through why it might be great for a fourth grader to seek out college-aged people as social mentors (with the right barriers).

That was me.

With your condescending broad-speak.

Under 18, the mind is closer to those +/- a few years from you, developmentally (and generally speaking). At least, that's what the know-it-alls were telling me when I was listening. Both pro and con home-school "zealots". Age peers is a thing

Peers in what sense? There are clearly examples of kids that are both erudite many years beyond their age and kids that excel in technical subjects well beyond their years. Clearly a distribution exists and it’s wider than +/- a few years even if that covers 1 or even 2 standard deviations.

For what it’s worth I’ve even met adults who can’t regulate and control their emotional reactions. They often have a prison background which either caused it or why they ended up in prison.

Age. I said "age peers"

I think you completely missed the point I was trying to make. Age peers are an illusion and only appears like a thing because most people follow a standard distribution; but this does nothing for the people who are further away from the mean.

Yeah, I routinely took classes with students 3–8 years older than me before going to college. "Age peers" are an illusion. However:

1. I mostly only cared about school w.r.t learning. For most kids, school is primarily a place to socialize.

2. If it took you two years to achieve the same level as what took someone else ten years (going with the 2nd vs. 10th grade example from a few comments up), I don't think you're going to get an appropriate pacing by just moving into the same class as them...

Maybe you missed when I said "generally". However you seem to be aware of standard distribution (ie generally) and then go on to talk about the edges (again).

I'm not missing your point at all. I'm talking generally and you're just stating (the obvious) that curves (spectrum?) exist and that some (~30%?) are outside the middle of the bell. Neat.

Since we agree there is a range of personalities and intelligence, maybe we agree that wide exposure to others (such as classmates) is, generally, a good thing.

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