We had tiered classes when I was a kid. Stupid, normal, smart. They weren't called that, but that was basically what was going on. I was put in slow math classe

We had tiered classes when I was a kid. Stupid, normal, smart. They weren't called that, but that was basically what was going on. I was put in slow math classes and still my grades were poor. My teachers, my parents and even myself, we were all convinced the subject was beyond me. I had no talent for it. As I grew older, this didn't sit right with me. By high school I switched my focus to math and science. By college I had chosen engineering, eventually taking all your typical undergrad math classes: differential equations, linear algebra, vector calculus and so on. I'm still terrible at math. It never got easier. Every step I took I found to be very difficult. I got by with work ethic and sacrifice. I could have easily given up at any point along they way. Why didn't I? Not sure. Maybe I was fueled by resentment. We need to be careful when we start telling people what they're not good at. We need to be careful when using terms like "talent". Many of us would like to quickly quantify cognitive ability, tie it to our genetics and be done with it. It's easy. But perhaps that's the problem, it's easy.