<p>Lazybum.</p>
<p>There ARE students who are developmentally and intellectually advanced. But many aren’t. There is one 8 year old taking math classes with others ranging in age from 13 to 18 and she really looks like an 8 year old! A few years back, there was a 10 year old preparing for her A levels (the equivalent of APs) and again, she looked like a 10 year old. No one would confuse them with college-age students. Ditto the 11 year old boy who was studying quantum physics. I did not follow what happened to them. They were all homeschooled, but I think they were beginning to reach the limit of what was available outside of a university setting.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: I agree. Age segregation is a fairly recent trend, as is mass education. In pre-industrial societies, children were taught (if they were taught at all) quite often at home by tutors or in the local equivalent of the one-room school.</p>