| I think the message he's communicating is that he knows he hasn't fully committed himself ever. He's shied away from it, danced along the edges of it. But never done it. I'm of a similar age, and a similar childhood. I get where he's coming from, even though he's far more successful than me. He's comparing himself to what he knows his potential to be. Or what he believes it to be, anyway, which might as well be the same thing in its effect. That gets to be a complicated thing. It's delusional in part, of course. But it's also not, in part. He likely really could have achieved a lot more if he'd put more of himself into it. Maybe not all he imagines, but he's clearly saying he knows there was more to do than he's done. I don't think that's a bad standard to hold yourself to. I think a lot of progress depends on that kind of standard. My senior year of high school I had this long running fight with one of my teachers. I'd cruised through school to that point, putting in just enough effort to pass everyone else, but no more than that. This teacher started grading me lower, writing "You can do better than this" on my papers. I was furious with him. Furious. I'd stay after school and we'd literally yell at each other about it for hours. I said he had no right to expect more from me, I was giving him more than anyone else was as things were. He had to grade me on the same scale. He completely refused to do it. Being a very stubborn boy, I refused to do more. I "won" that argument by just not giving him what he wanted from me. But he was right to demand it, and I was wrong not to work harder. I paid for that attitude in college and for many years after. I think in the end it's about not cheating yourself. I think that's that McClure is on about, and I think he's right. |
I blame myself for this, but feel education could be delivered differently to cater for people like us. I had a great education, attending the same school as Terry Pratchett and Heston Blumenthal had, with a lot of teachers who knew their subjects well and cared about their pupils' development, beyond just league table ratings. However, the reason I got A4s is because I never failed - I kept getting what I needed to without putting in effort; I needed a challenge to force me to push myself. In those days this may not have been possible; the internet was still in its infancy so you only competed with those in your year group. Streaming helps here, but with the numbers involved the top set may be the top 30 / 120 or so, so still a very mixed bag.
There are now a number of projects to provide education on-line. As this grows and the school/education models adapt to take advantage of this, I suspect we'll see competition between larger groups of people, encouraging those of a certain attitude to push themselves further to meet their full potential. That said, for those towards the bottom will this force them to up their game, or leave them feeling failures with no motivation? Hopefully the systems will evolve to aid those at both ends by selecting appropriate methods for the various personalities involved, allowing everyone to meet their potential.