All the successes I've had in my life stem from the G&T program.When I was 12 (in the 70's)I was attending a school with a Ford Foundation Grant. My first day of Gifted Special Ed. included learning the rules of the game "The Peter Principle," while lounging around on non- threatening shag carpeting instead of actual furniture. We were told that we would not be graded on things like "work" and "attendance." I made a buddy, Ken, and looked forward to the next Wednesday.
The next week, we were blind-folded and given objects that we were to silently "experience" with all of our other senses. I was given a leaf. I distinctly remember being told to "taste it." I asked, "You want me to eat a dried up leaf, and I'm not getting a grade or any credit for this?" Ken piped up, "A leaf? You're lucky. I have a rock." Ken and I spent many wonderful Wednesday afternoons cheating the Coke machine (the old kind that distributed Coke in cups with ice) secure in the knowledge that attendance and work were not mandatory. I sometimes (OK- never) wondered what happened to our rock eating classmates.
We never did any wierd hippy crap like that. In elementary school the gifted program was pretty unstructured, there were a few class projects but for the most part the tools were made available to us (lots of self paced things, plus ready access to the library) and we could learn what we wanted to. We had to set goals for every quarter and that was the source of our grades, but we were always told to leave room to "explore". We could kick back and read, even play with toys if we could figure out how it was "educational" (Rubik's Cubes and other puzzles were popular, as were some RC hovercraft one kid brought in, and the teacher gave every kid an issue of Games magazine for their birthday). The big thing was to let us fill our time without being a distraction, breaking the cycle of finishing a project the teacher thought would take an hour in 10 minutes and being bored for the next 50. If (when) we finished early we could go do something else, use the opportunity, which still helps me out today.