The Curse of Learning

What is a good measure of a person's potential? Is it how smart they are? Or is it how well they do in school? These second two questions seem to be completely unrelated. A low intelligence person can be motivated and responsible and do well in school. A high intelligence person can be of low motivation and low responsibility and do poorly. These things tend to be confused amongst the common people, but it is well accepted amongst behavior psychologists and anyone researching the area. I think one of the best things that can be done is to educate the public about these matters. I am commonly referred to as 'smart' or 'genius', when in fact I am a very slow learner and forget things quite easily. I overcome this by studying actual methods (textbooks and scientific articles) to become a more successful, efficient learner. In conjunction with this, I do all of my work on time and go to class. These simple ingredients can allow anyone to score mostly all A's in their class work. Part of the curse of modern learning is that it is not taught to be enjoyable and useful; it is used to weed people out and force facts down young people's throats. Everyone learns the same things whether interesting to them or not, and everyone must learn it at the same pace as the rest of the class. Learning and Memory techniques are never taught to children (in fact, bogus methods that have no evidence for working are taught such as visual, kinesthetic, and audio learners). Only in college can one begin to choose to study things they are interested in, and by then it is far too late to easily instill proper methods of learning and a love of learning in people. Nonetheless, some people (particularly college students) find the need to become good at learning and memory even if they do not enjoy it; and some people learn to enjoy it once they realize what it is all about. It is my unprofessional opinion that anyone can become a genius by developing the proper habits, regardless of actual mental capabilities. I will attempt to outline how over the next few weeks (supposing that my train of thought remains on this topic). I love to learn and love to learn how to learn, and that is the reason people think I am smart, not because I have a naturally superior mind (which I don't).