Right, there's a difference between intrinsic incentives and extrinsic incentives. With extrinsic incentives, you pay someone to do something you want them to. There is only so much performance you can get out of someone by paying them: if the task is mind numbingly boring, they will take more money for it but probably not increase proficiency beyond a certain point.

But with intrinsic incentives, there is no limit to what someone will do to get what they want. If it's learning, then they will self-direct their learning. They'll surpass other students and even the teacher. The problem with a lot of school is that we expect students to learn by incentivizing them extrinsically (threatening punishment if they fail, rewarding them if they succeed), but most of the subjects taught in school will never be used again and so there's no intrinsic motivation to learn them