"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work."
-- Mark Twain

are that you do.  It’s also a good bet that, at some point, someone TOLD you

that you were bad at math.

          Most people can think of one thing, one incident, one terrible haunting

memory that has made them think they stink at this stuff. 

          At the beginning of one semester, I had a student come up to talk to me

after class.  He was a very athletic and even nice-looking guy… but he didn’t

look happy at all.  His shoulders were drooped and he walked with his head

down.  He told me that he was really worried that he wasn’t going to be able to

pass my class (Beginning Algebra) because he was really bad at math.  I

asked him what had happened to make him think this.  He told me a story that

happened to him way back in the third grade.  He remembered that he was up

at the board, in front of the whole class, trying to do a long division problem. 

He just wasn’t getting it.  The poor kid tried and tried and couldn’t get it.  The

teacher was trying to help him –    in front of everyone – and he still wasn’t

getting it.  Finally, out of frustration, the teacher said, “How can you be so

stupid?”

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