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IRL, for 9th grade (which was the last year of our middle school) our “gifted” (”PEN”) class took the form of a block standing in for our English and Social Studies classes. In retrospect it was a sink they let all the pedagogical experimentalists go nuts on (block scheduling, collapsible walls to combine classes - in 8th grade they had tried mainstreaming the retarded/”Life Skills” kids with us, that was ridiculous)

Meanwhile the rest of the district (3rd biggest in the state, white flight from Philly) played it safe and conservative quietly tracking kids into 3 (non-college/community or state college/selective college) paths

Anyway once a month we had like a 6-9pm afterschool session and once they ran it on us, and the thing was it was the late ‘90s, we were aware of what they were doing, some of us had internet/magazine read or TV newsmagazine watched about this before, I think one kid whose Toll Brothers McMansion professional parents just moved up from Dixie had been put through it before once already

And our general reaction was to unite across groups on “forget the metaphor, pulling this cheesy Afterschool Special shtick as an excuse to obnoxiously berate your students is kinda bullshit”