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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tanager" data-source="post: 1872825" data-attributes="member: 1986">While natural aptitude plays a part I think education or experience (particularly early education) and self perception plays a bigger role. A case in point:In highschool I dated a girl who absolutely sucked at math, I mean she did really poorly. By our graduating year (grade 11 in these parts) she was doing grade 9 math for the third time. She wasn't stupid, she just could not, for the life of her do it. Or so it seemed.One day we were talking about it and she was telling me that she had always been bad at math, she even got out her old report cards from primary school to prove it. Sure enough, every single one of them said, in one way or another "has trouble with math".The problem was that she had become conviced that this was true and that she couldn't do it. And no one had taken the time to explain to her that she could.So, we're in grade 11, we both switched to a new school and a friend and I begin to tutor her. By early december her math grades rise from teens and twenties to seventies and eighties. She starts to 'get it' she even starts to enjoy it.Sadly, christmas break rolls around and while we're out of school she slips back into old habits and goes back to her 'I can't do math' mindset, despite all evidence to the contrary. She refuses to even let my friend and I try to tutor her anymore and basically washes her hands of it completely.</blockquote>