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QUARTER NOTE

Rethinking False Assumptions

David Freedman, PM2

What happens when the things you believed to I’m pretty sure I thanked him, but I certainly
be true at an earlier age are later challenged and didn’t believe him at the time.
found to be false? In a similar way, because I grew up with
When I was younger, mathematics was a number of disabilities, physical education
one of my weaker subjects. In fact, I believed was often a nightmarish experience. Being

it was one of my worst subjects, along with the smallest kid in the class with a lazy
science and perhaps social studies. Yes, I can eye and clubbed feet didn’t help matters.
remember occasions when that wasn’t the case I struggled to get through P.E. classes, and

and I did better in class. But by and large, math was relieved when they stopped after my
was something that I simply thought I had no freshman year at Lincoln High School.
business doing. It wasn’t uncommon for me to However, Lincoln was only a stone’s throw
get Cs and Ds in Geometry and Algebra 2, with away from Downtown Portland, and I found
very few exceptions. myself walking there to shop, eat, study at the

In college, I took one more math course. library, and explore.
I believed it would help me with my class in One day, when I was walking home from the
statistics, a requirement for my Psychology Sylvan bus stop in the West Hills, I noticed that

minor—it didn’t. I had to take the statistics class my stamina had greatly improved. To reach
twice, barely passing the second time. Then home, after getting off the bus, we walked a half-
something. . . well. . . weird. . . happened. I did mile mostly uphill. I hated that trip until one day,
surprisingly well in the math class, perhaps it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t tiring
because I’d worked on many of the formulas nearly as easily as I used to. From then on, I loved

before. walking, despite the belief that I was no good
Even stranger, the instructor said he thought I with most other physical activities. Years later, I
was very gifted in math. What? I was stunned. No attended Mt. Hood Community College to obtain

one had ever mentioned this to me in the past. my associate degree in medical transcription.
My primary talents were in English, singing, and Again, it was required that I take a physical
writing with forays into acting in high school, education class as part of the curriculum. To my
but math was definitely not one of those gifts. surprise, my activity level had improved enough
Yet here was someone who believed differently. that I got an A out of the class. The instructor

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