I live maybe 5 miles from the township mentioned in the article, and my township is quite similar. I&#x27;m white, and in 2nd grade I was placed into the advanced mathematics class where most of the students were &quot;asian-americans&quot;. I loved being able to do more advanced math, because it was interesting and the teachers were really good at making it fun to be smart. For the 10 years after that I would end up 2 years ahead of the &quot;average&quot; curriculum. This was normal for advanced students. We took Algebra in 7th grade, Calculus in 11th grade. I was actually probably below-average in the range of students I was classed with. It sounds like a cliche but I didn&#x27;t really ever do homework, but got A&#x27;s on tests, so I would end up with B&#x27;s and C&#x27;s and since there were no grade requirements for advancement, my teachers always recommended me for the highest next level class because they actually interacted with me and didn&#x27;t just sign off on the grade percentage.<p>I have to imagine it was because my parents were very laid back, but I never felt pressure to do better than I was doing. Everyone goes to college where I live, so no one really worried about that. Some kids had parents that wanted them to go to Ivy League schools so they had to work harder, but it&#x27;s not like the school made it difficult to succeed if that was your goal. You chose your own classes in high school and could test into almost any AP class if you went to the teacher directly. I only bring up high school because I can&#x27;t remember any time before that when anyone would have stress from how much work they have to do in school.<p>Reading the article makes me think their school district is like ours, which I would hesitate to call &quot;hyper competitive&quot;. Kids are still kids. Bad parents will always be bad parents. The school exists to help people learn, and if you learn faster than other people the school should support that. Maybe my experience is not common, but I&#x27;d bet almost anyone who went to my school would say they got exactly what they wanted out of it, whether that was an Ivy League college admission or just a coast through graduation.<p>I&#x27;m not sure where I was going with this but I just wanted to point out that being challenged intellectually from an early age doesn&#x27;t make you a jerk or hyper competitive.