I haven't introduced her to any harsh realities yet. I've taught her valuable skills; it's not like i've taught her what war is XD Also, sure; let kids be kids but she's very bright and I intend to nurture that. I was bright in school, never had the extra help, parents didn't care either. I came out with mediocre grades because I basically f***ed around because I was bored. She needs challenge with her education and the school isn't providing it.
Give her every opportunity at home, and don't be afraid to change schools. I was a year ahead in school and offered skips two more times but my parents said no because they didn't want me to be "different." I wish to hell they had. I took it upon myself to educate myself further, and many of my teachers saw that drive and offered me extra opportunities. In a way, American school didn't fail me. By my senior year I had taken up all my academics for the most part and spent half my school day practicing French horn. That sat me in great stead for college scholarships, which I handily won. I'd take her out of that school. They're doing far more harm than good.
It's my opinion that this is related to/ translates to a very damaging attitude in the professional workplace. Comments like "We're doing so well, everyone works so hard, it's great to have such dedicated staff" and so on get thrown around, when in fact there are a select few who pull nowhere near their own weight, in fact they're complete slackers, pulling the whole staff down with them, and management completely ignore it because some other poor suckers are picking up their slack and making the organization/staff as a whole look great from the outside, and also because they don't want to believe that there are lazy staff on their payroll. I've heard it's also the hardest thing in the world to have someone fired from a long standing post in the public sector. Can you tell I've had a shitty week?
That was part of my point too - that every employer assumes that all of their staff enjoy mediocrity when in actual fact most of their staff are unhappy with their conditions, pay or having to deal with other people's workloads.
I would like to add another view, its related but not really the situation described in op. I listened to an interesting piece on radio 4 a couple weeks back (first off, no I'm not that old that I listen to r4, I was changing CDs in car) on a show called the educators (I think) which had some interesting discussion on teaching maths. But one of the points brought up was mixed sets, specifically pairing those most able with those who were struggling. And by doing this you can raise standards for both. If any of you lot have done it, you'll know that teaching something forces you to really understand the subject, and by getting the most able kids to help teach you can improve their understanding and abilities as well as helping the others get the basics. Now I know this is different from the op situation, but that is what it should be like, sticking rigidly to the curriculum will always screw over those most and least able, as well as not really develop those in the middle. It also rewards the efford by both lots of students, as there's not a "winner" but both get pride in achievements, the less able in completing and the more able in helping them get there. But this all assumes that teachers allow other methods to be used, as well as a more flexible approach in teaching. Not going to touch on sports however, I hated sports myself, though that may be the crappy welsh obsession with rugby (and that I went down with my chronic illness at the age of 12). And the fact that all P.E. teachers are sadistic *******s...
I stated it before, the pairing of the most able and least able USUALLY doesn't work. Maybe at such a young age it will work, but once you start to get older, the least able are usually the ones with poor work ethic, and they are less than willing to do decent work, or complete work in a timely manor. A friend of mine had the highest mark in our gym class, but he was one of the least athletic people - he always put in an effort, tried his best, and even got picked on when we played dodgeball and stuff, but he never let it stop him. Our teacher was actually really good at trying to keep people off his back, just because he was more academic than athletic.
