You're absolutely right, even in this thread there's a ton of "I was able to teach myself, so clearly everyone would be geniuses if only the system didn't hold

You're absolutely right, even in this thread there's a ton of "I was able to teach myself, so clearly everyone would be geniuses if only the system didn't hold them back" posts. It's the same thing that led to a lot of the problems with the OLPC project (check out the book "The Charisma Machine" if you're interested in that subject).