I don't like this answer but I kind of see how it fits this specific scenario - answering bunch of high-schoolers and keeping them somewhat motivated. For me r

I don't like this answer but I kind of see how it fits this specific scenario - answering bunch of high-schoolers and keeping them somewhat motivated. For me real answer is "if you manage to learn yourself calculus - you will learn how to learn anything". Most of the time when I just pushed through at university I noticed ways I retain knowledge - how after first repeating steps time after time without understanding I was starting to grasp things because I did something 10 times and somehow things fall in place, how trying different approaches helps to connect the dots, how building mechanical movements on basics help me speed up understanding of more complex stuff. Just like you have to grind multiplication table to later solve longer equations quickly. Now lets say you don't solve equations - but whole approach applied to filling in taxes, like first you fill in forms as an example 10 times, try to calculate all on your own 10 times - and yes you are wrong because you don't understand all fields and why you have to fill them in and with which value. If you do it 10 times on your own you submit 11th that you know is most likely correct. You also learn how you feel when you are wrong - so you get intuition that "this is stupid" starts to be "I don't understand it yet - have to dig through a bit more". Well high-schoolers by default mark things "this is stupid" if they don't understand something which is also meta answer for such question - but telling them that they don't understand is not proper answer in class setting :).