The French word for fate is sort. One of the worst mistakes we make is premature sorting. Deciding based on early information whether people have a particular aptitude for a group of skills or area of knowledge. Quite often the abilities needed to pick something up quickly, and the skills needed to master it are very different. I always remember a talk given to us at school by Professor Swart. He told us to treat every subject like History. Practice and Past Papers. He told the story of a girl who went from failing maths to getting an A simply by doing as many past papers as possible. Eventually, she started to see the patterns. The main skill you were picking up at school was how to learn, not who you are. One friend at school struggled along with the rest of us Durban Boys in Afrikaans. Now he is fluent because he met, and married, a girl. Mastery normally comes not from sorting, but from seeing a reason to put the sustained effort in. Find the why, map the process, and put in the work.
Education isn't for putting us in our place
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