<p>PV, Olymom makes some excellent points. When S1 was entering 9th grade, he was all about math and CS, period. Those AP history/gov’t courses got him thinking in a whole new way. He became even more of a news junkie. He joined the philosophy club. He joined the school paper. He became a lot more outgoing and started teaching. This led to educational advocacy and more teaching. The desire for more humanities/social sciences and an interest in being around folks studying other things proved so strong that he didn’t choose the “obvious” school where he was accepted, but went some place else that had the intensity of math he wanted, but the rest of the package as well. The social stuff can still be challenging for him – and he was in a HS environment with kids like him and that was extremely supportive on all levels.</p>
<p>Your D will grow and expand her horizons over the next few years. Let her figure out where it takes her. She clearly needs to be academically challenged, but she and you need to be open to the other possibilities. She’s going to develop her own opinions. Noone’s saying she has to drop math or science. They’re just saying there’s more to life than that – and that is a necessary part of her growth, too. You don’t want her coming home on leave from college in a few years because she doesn’t have the ability to see herself as anything other than a brain and can’t integrate into the rest of life. Believe me.</p>
<p>I just hate to see this disintegrate into name-calling when there are important experiences and personal truths being shared.</p>
<p>BTW, I spent some time on the IB website yesterday looking at info that might help tease ouot IB Diploma programs that start in 10th grade. Suffice it to say that sleepless’s school is a VERY rare exception in the US. The program is intended to be for students in their last two years of HS.</p>