ABSOLUTE ASCENDANCY

Now if you have read my about section, you will already know that I struggled with my education in my early years, and it wasn’t until college and university that I really got into my stride. You can see apart from English, I was below average everywhere else, and by a fair margin. I attribute my good English to my habit of reading.

Humanitarian subjects never quite stuck with me, nor languages. Coming from a family of male Mathematicians you would think I’d have inherited good mathematical aptitude, but it was not quite the case. If I were to put a letter to my grade in Mathematics based on that report, I would say I was at an E.

Educationally I was far behind the curve. I took special needs classes and tuition lessons to help try and compensate for my shortcomings. I did improve until moving to the United Kingdom to commence secondary school.

Due to the difference in timing relating to school years, I practically jumped from the beginning of year 7 to the end of year 8. In no time at all, I was beginning year 9 with a government-regulated end of year examination looming at year-end.  To put things into perspective for Mathematics, I was essentially thrown into the deep end, having to understand concepts such as algebra and trigonometry. In primary school, I never had to deal with equations which included x’s and y’s, so why did they start mixing English with Maths?

I believe I was initially placed in set five for Science, four for Maths, and three for English, with three being the average level of ability. I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to catch up to the majority!

Slowly but surely, over many years, my abilities began to flourish. Enforced by my unwavering determination and hard-working ethic, I transformed. I started at the bottom and had to crawl my way up, though I am fortunate that such persistence pays dividends as it gives people like me a fighting chance in this world.

I cannot recall my SAT results, but I made it to set two in Maths, Science and English for years ten and eleven. From here, I managed to score a grade B in Mathematics at G.C.S.E level and surprisingly achieved an A in Mathematics at A-level.

I say surprisingly because the difficulty jump between G.C.S.E and A-Level is vast, so the fact that I scored better in Mathematics at A-Level in comparison to G.C.S.E just goes to show how much improvement I made during my college years.

I continued with my mathematics education at university, and it may seem weird for me to say this, but overall I found university easier than A-level. True, I had to work a lot at university, and my thesis took up much of my time in the final year, but in a sense, the vast jump from G.C.S.E to A-Level had helped prepare me for the jump from A-Level to university.

I even spent a year tutoring at the Mathematics Support Centre, while at university. When I was young never did I think I would ever be in the position to actually be teaching Mathematics to others!

I completed my formal education, being awarded the degree of Bachelor of Sciences with Honours 1st Class in Mathematics.

Creative Stymie

Despite my eventual achievements in Mathematics, I believe my mind is more creatively driven, rather than logical. As a child, I enjoyed creative pursuits, such as drawing and building things with Lego blocks.

I recall distinctly a drawing competition in my primary school class where each pupil had to submit a drawing for the teacher to review, who would then rank first to third place. I sketched a picture of a horse jumping over a barricade in a competition as my submission on an A3 sheet of paper.

I cannot recall where I placed, but it wasn’t the number one spot, so in frustration, I scrunched up the paper and binned it, which was met with some shock and reprimand from the teacher. At the time I felt that if the number one spot wasn’t good enough, then what was the point?

I believe that experience discouraged me from pursuing drawing any further, which in a way, I think is a shame because I did enjoy it back then. I did try and dip back into it in secondary school by taking up Graphic Products at G.C.S.E but ended up with a D grade. My mind had been focussed and trained to be logical over the years, which likely tipped the scales away from my creative side.

Conclusion

Throughout my education, when making choices on what to pursue further, I chose to stick with what I perceived were my strengths, using my past results as a predictive indicator of future success. Ultimately I do not regret the choices I made throughout my educative years. These days I recognise that I have greater synergy creatively than I do logically, and because of that, I am thankful I spent a large number of years fortifying my logical side of the brain. I feel that I am now better balanced as an individual.

The anecdotal examples described in the previous sections illustrate the two main scenarios when it comes to learning a skill.

With Mathematics, I started out abysmally, but through a lot of hard work and gruelling effort, I was eventually able to attain impressive results. On the other side of the spectrum, I believe I had a natural talent for drawing as a child. It came pretty easy to me, but a particular experience discouraged me from developing the skill further. So even though I was good enough to polish the skill of drawing and further myself in that direction, I chose not to.

Can the talentless whelp eventually master a high-level skill, or are such abilities reserved solely for the elite? Mastery of a skill requires both effort and ability. Those lacking in ability but have effort can attain mastery through persistence as correctly displaced effort cultivates ability. Those lacking in effort but have ability will stumble and fall short sooner or later.

Mission complete – Overlord Drakow signing out.