School is horrible at teaching people to tackle non-trivial projects, because almost no time is spent practicing it. Figuring out how to break a large job into

School is horrible at teaching people to tackle non-trivial projects, because almost no time is spent practicing it. Figuring out how to break a large job into small pieces, do one piece at a time, and stick with the project until all of the pieces are done is a critical skill which can only be learned through practice. Someone who is 8 or 10 years old should be able to start doing projects that take hours of sustained effort stretched over a few days (as compared to the typical schoolwork which consists of externally specified small exercises that require a few minutes each), with a lot of hand holding. By age 18, after 10 years of consistent practice at the edge of their ability, students can certainly learn to deal with projects taking a month or more of sustained independent effort for a little bit of time every day.