School is also an adverse learning environment. Your definition of succeeding at school is too narrow - digesting information isn’t enough to be a success at s

School is also an adverse learning environment. Your definition of succeeding at school is too narrow - digesting information isn’t enough to be a success at school. For example, you need to balance social/peer success with academic success which can be tricky. Teachers’ behaviors and expectations differ greatly so you need to quickly develop models of their motivations. You also need to optimize/direct your efforts - there is only a finite number of hours in the day and attempting to “win” at school by simply digesting facts can only work for a tiny minority. In fact, when I think of my peers in school who I would considered to have “succeeded” the most in that environment, none did do solely by being able to digest facts - most were only slightly better than average academically but succeeded in other ways.