To achieve the necessary qualifications to practice medicine or law in Canada requires about 10 years of study and also includes some form of supervised practice during and after the academic requirements have been met.
But those numbers, those qualifications, tell us very little about the potential for excellence in carpentry or wizardry in a professional kitchen. It’s possible that we miss that point when, in the design of our public education system, we hold up the achievement of passing externally imposed obligatory tests as the end goal.
Did I become an accomplished educator? That’s not for me to say. There were successful and less successful experiences along the way, but not for a moment did I ever want to do anything else. Which childish activity, on the face of it, seemed to be leading nowhere but became the path to a career or occupation?
Even though it was not supposed to be part of the selection process, I was just as interested in what else, hopefully included in their application, an applicant had accomplished with his or her life.