Editorial August 29, 1994 Issue

Are you prepared to see significant change?

Russ Gerber

Let's say you've consistently had great difficulty with mathematics. It's common knowledge among your classmates. Finally, you're told you're going to be sent away to a different school, one that offers a special math course for slow learners.

In this new school things eventually turn around. You no longer find math to be a difficult subject; in fact, you become quite a good mathematician. Before long you're getting all A's. Years later you run into some of your former classmates. The trouble is, they haven't forgotten the past. In their eyes you're still a slow learner. Those classmates aren't prepared to see you as you really are, as a top-notch math student.

Something like this happens because we go along thinking that people will continue to be what we've always believed them to be. We're not prepared to see significant change in someone because human nature and popular belief tell us it isn't likely to happen.

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