I was in the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program.
All we did was origami. And a few field trips to science museums. But mostly origami.
Wish it would have been different.
Shout out to my 4th grade teacher for getting his hands on middle school - high school math textbooks though. I worked through 10th grade math in 4th and 5th grade. (He taught both years)
It was great.
Unfortunately then I went to middle school which was on a different campus and had to “redo” 6th grade math, then I started hating school and skipping all the time. Tried doing homeschooling but then I just ended up trying to teach myself programming and then I got in trouble for using the internet and “hacking” and was banned from using the computer.
So then I rebelled more and more and eventually went to live with the other parent in a divorced family and I did online school where I was finally able to work at my own pace and they had programming classes.
That worked out great and I fell in love with learning again. Took a bunch of language classes plus heaps of math and programming classes.
Then I graduated high school and found out that I:
So I did what any rebellious student with a love for learning did! I got a shitty job making k$11/hour and enrolled at my local community college.
Things were going great until the company shut down in my second term and I ran out of savings and had to drop out.
That sucked, so I got another job and then tried to go back to school but that job refused to work with my school schedule. So I couldn’t go to school until I found another job.
Wait what were we talking about again?
I swear. I haven’t written this out in a while and it really just hurts to remember. I’m 25 and still have no degree. I work for a marketing agency and have a technical position with a decent bit of scripting (VBA, Apps Script, and JavaScript mostly) but this is fucking stupid.
7 years of wasted fucking time.
I’m moving to Norway. (Like, actually. I’ve learned Norwegian and am working on moving there so I can finish my CS degree without having to worry about losing my job or some dumb shit)
Anyway yeah, we need TAG programs but obviously I have some ideas about how they could be reformed lol.
I think a better way to implement it would really be to change our whole education system to more closely resemble Norway’s.
In Norway’s system, you can begin to choose “fast track” specialisations starting in 6th grade. So I could have gone to a middle school specifically focused on advanced math and science, while others can choose to go to a middle school specifically focused on law and history, others to health services middle schools, that kind of thing.