The mantra ‘natural ability only gets you so far’ is an interesting concept. All the great business men and women, the highly intelligent scientists and academics, the incredibly skilled sports men and women – do they have a natural ability in their chosen profession or is their success the result of their personal dedication and grit?
At CCSC, our students form a cohort who are wide-ranging in their natural ability, their skill levels, their dedication and their grit. Whilst not all of us are lucky enough to have extraordinary natural ability, the majority of us do have an ability which requires hard work, dedication and grit to succeed. Superior as it may seem to be gifted with natural ability, this only gets you so far. It does not equate to success. As educators we guide our students to be proud of their natural ability which comes in many different forms and help them understand that success is a culmination of many things. The ingredients we create success with are interest, dedication, the desire to improve, ability (natural or learned), time, effort and grit. Without these ingredients we cannot truly arrive at our own success.
In the classroom students are the masters of their recipe for their own success. If there is an ingredient missing, perhaps the desired outcome fails. If there is too much of one ingredient, and not enough of another, the outcome may be average. As the Olympics begin and the Olympians are about to embark on their journey I wonder will those who achieve gold do so because of their ‘natural ability’ or will they have achieved the correct recipe for success.
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