It took me a long, long time to accept that I was intelligent. Why? Because according to the standards used I was only an average student. This wasn't helped by the move to promote science and maths in girls' education. Which wasn't a bad thing in itself, not at all - feminist theory finally caught up with the curriculum and it was realised that it wasn't freakish for girls to like and be as good at science as boys. This was very liberating in a lot of ways for a lot of female students but given the emphasis that was being placed on the sciences while I was in high school I always felt less somehow than my brainy friends, because I was doing 'fuzzy' subjects.

With the benefit of hindsight I can see now that some of my teachers did recognise my intelligence - if they didn't I wouldn't have kept getting the 'could do better if she applied herself' comments on my reports - but I didn't think of myself as smart because I couldn't comprehend anything much beyond the basics of science. I loved biology and chemistry at first but once we started needing to use complex symbology in the formulas I faltered. I couldn't get my brain around the symbols, still can't, and as for physics? That might as well have been magic for all of my understanding!

Added to my lack of logical intelligence was the fact that I wasn't particularly good at 'art', which was the other end of the perceived 'success' spectrum. It wasn't just the brainy girls who were lauded at my school, it was the artists as well. I was no artist, I was no scientist, I kind of languished in the middle believing I wasn't very good at anything so why bother?

I was highly literate, though, and I could easily grasp emotional concepts and motivations, and I could draw cohesive conclusions from disparate pieces of information, but I didn't recognise this as important for many years and neither did anyone else in the school system, apparently.
I was stunned, and a little uneasy, when told by my English Literature teacher at the end of my disastrous year 12 that with my intelligence she knew I'd do well at whatever I set my mind to. What? Intelligent? Me? Nah... Of my five subjects that year I knew I'd failed two, and would be lucky to scrape a pass in the rest, and it was those final marks which determined our futures. I'd have nowhere near enough points to get into any tertiary institute - even if I had any idea of what I actually wanted to do. No, it was the service industry or clerical for me.

Of course I managed to disregard the bit about 'setting my mind to something' which, in the fullness of time, has proved to be absolutely true. <g> Now I can override the internal voice that tells me I won't be able to do something cos I'm not clever enough - once I'm clear on what it is I want to do, naturally.
Heh, 12 years of a torturous education ingraining a lack of confidence eventually nullified by one kind comment from someone I respected. Is there a moral to this? I dunno, perhaps 'Find something nice to say to even the dumbest kid and it might help them look beyond their perceived/self-imposed limitations'?
Gods that's insightful, isn't it? I could go into motivational speaking and make a fortune! If I had the slightest interest in doing something other than writing fiction... <smirk>