The temptation to get on with it

In high school, I had a biology teacher called Sister Kath. She was a lovely, loud nun with a knack for making it VERY CLEAR when something mattered. As we worked through our biology textbooks, Sister Kath would have us mark particular passages with a yellow highlighter, signalling the subject matter most likely to turn up in our exams. During practical classes, she would project her instructions from the front of the lab as we dissected rats and tried to persuade baby chicks to imprint themselves on us. When a room full of teenage girls became impatient and wanted to rush through whatever assignment or project was in front of us, Sister Kath would say: “Girls, if you want to do something quickly, do it slowly.”