Hmmm. I can lend some anecdotal testimony from a similar, but not identical course.
In short summary, I was a precocious child, and to my (contemporary) detriment, I knew it. I grew up during the "phonics" craze of the early 1960's, but my primary educator was in fact, my mother. By the time I entered elementary school, I was (as tested) reading and writing (and properly pronouncing words and articulating compound/complex sentences) at a "fourth grade level". There was some "heated" exchanges betwixt my mother and the school's administration as to whether it was necessary for me to "relearn" how to read phonetically. Debate ensued as to whether I should be "promoted" to a higher grade level, so as to avoid my boredom, or shield others from perceptual "inadequacies". My mother insisted that I be allowed my own appropriately commensurate (and independant) curriculum, yet remain within my own like-aged peer group (thanks Mom ;-)).
By Fourth grade, it was (again) independently evaluated that I was reading and writing (with similar mathematical skills) at a twelfth-grade level of comprehension and proficiency. It was again strongly suggested that I be "accelerated" by at least three grade levels. One more, my mother resisted such advice, and insisted that I be allowed (what was then called) "independent study"...but remain within my established circle of friends and peers.
It was not until the Sixth grade (when I was indulging college-level "AP", or "Advanced Placement" courses) that she finally relented, and allowed me to "skip" from sixth to eighth grade (which at that time, was merely skipping the introductory year of "Junior", or "Middle School" education.
By the time High School rolled around, I was earning a modest income from tutoring other students of similar age/academic level. It was again strongly suggested that I be "accelerated" to Senior-level classes (with summer schooling) to expeditiously accommodate all of the requisite State standards of graduation.
At last, I was allowed a say in such decisions. I ultimately resisted. In the long run, I had satisfied all (but one) of my graduation requirements by the middle of my Junior year. If I had chosen to take "Senior English" (despite the fact that I was already managing editor of both the school newspaper and Literary magazine) during that impending Summer school, I would have easily graduated then and there. But, I was also a "jock" (as it were), and a team captain of both the soccer team and the "It's Academic" team ( a locally televised academic knowledge challenge). I chose to stay in school (despite having earned National Merit Scholarship results in my SAT's and overall GPA - aside: my mom was devastated that I was not the valedictorian or salutatorian of my class...really), taking but one requisite course for graduation (yet remaining "on staff" for my other "english studies" commitments), so that I might enjoy such absurdities as my Senior Prom (which was, actually, a comedy of disasters), challenging for a State Championship in soccer (we lost), and winning our "division" in "It's Academic"...as well as our first successful publishing and monetary profit gained from distribution of our Literary Magazine.
So what's the moral of the story?
In retrospect, I have none to offer. I went to college, earned two degrees (in four years) in utterly disparate fields of study/interest...neither of which I ultimately pursued or enhanced "professionally" (for some time at least). Would I have been "better off" (or better served) in being "fast-tracked"? I honestly don't know. Without question, I would have missed some of my most favored lifetime experiences to date (and some difficult, "character building" ones as well). Almost certainly, "things" would have turned out differently for me, had that path been followed.
It is often (enough) remarked that wisdom is birthed and bred of experience and failure (of which I could lend personalized testimony to both), and it's questionable (even debatable) as to whether another (alternate) course might have lent an ultimately differing wisdom/perspective from which I might claim to as my own today. But I am not of the mind to second-guess the past...for I am pleased with who I am today, and with the chosen company I keep.
Life is not about what "might have been", but most intriguingly..."what's next".
Within this mortal existence, at the end of my days, I am most likely to regret not the things I have done, but the things I have left undone. And tomorrow is another day of opportunity and wonder yet to unfold and be realized...
) An eleven year-old doesn't need to be smart to skip those three years, he just needs to have a really pushy parent.
