excellence

A recent post on nanopolitan mentioned something that I have come across many times. People who firmly believe they can sing beautifully, or that Harvard is just waiting for them to apply in order to give them a PhD. It varies in degree, but it's the same thing.
In our college, we have an assembly every morning where a prayer is sung. A group of students lead the prayer. A boy often goes up on stage to join this group. He is really tone-deaf, but holds the mike. So his voice predominates. The result is really painful. So why does he not know that he cannot sing? After all, these are not small children. In our college fests, students put up dances which are reproductions of the popular Hindi movie songs and that too very often with lack of coordination. The practice for just a couple of hours and it shows. But they get "wows' from the audience of fellow students.
We do not expose our children to excellence during any part of their education.