Page 112 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
where the work would be harder and I would have to adjust to a much larger group of students in my grade; there would be approximately six hundred seventh-graders, compared with about one quarter of that number in the sixth grade at 193. I would also have to make (or, more accurately, my parents, and maybe I, would have to make) an important decision, namely, whether or not I would “take S.P.” S.P. was the Special Progress program, pursuant to which a supposedly select group of stu- dents would be eligible to complete what would ordinarily be a three-year junior high school experience in two years—by skipping eighth grade. (I’m not positive about the way in which eligibility was determined, whether performance in elementary school counted or not, but I do know that it was rumored that, to be eligible, you had to have had a score of at least 135, whatever that meant, on an IQ test, whatever that meant, that was administered in the sixth grade.) I have no doubt now that the decision to take S.P. had serious consequences in my life that I hardly anticipated at the time.
As I recall it, when the decision was made, on the negative side were considerations relating to my age. At the time, to be eligible to enter kindergarten, I believe that you had to turn five by the end of the calen- dar year in which you started. Thus, having been born in November, I was still four years of age when I started school and was, therefore, already “young for my grade.” Were I to elect to take S.P., I would be another year younger than a lot of my classmates. While that was not likely to matter academically, it might well matter socially. Would I be far behind emotionally? Physically? On the positive side was the argu- ment that if I did take S.P., I would be grouped with many kids who were then my classmates at 193, and those kids, having also been eligible for S.P., would be among the better students.
Both of my parents had skipped a grade and did not feel that their accelerated schooling had been socially detrimental. Each one had skipped a grade in elementary school pursuant to a program called Rapid Advance, which no longer existed when I went to school. Most of my friends were taking S.P. Thus, I elected (my parents elected for me?) to take S.P. as well and was grouped with about thirty pretty bright
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