Is every student capable of achieving extraordinary results in school with outstanding effort and self-discipline? Could students make a transition to another level with poor results and come out later with amazing results after a period of time? Certainly, the answer is a big YES, and countless research studies, including those I have presented in this book, have proven this fact beyond any reasonable doubt. Just reflect deeply about the inspiring story below.
Jaime Escalante taught advanced math at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, U.S.A. This school was regarded as the most notorious, where all the academically weak students and hardened street kids who were condemned to failing miserably were found. Teachers posted to teach math in this school immediately gave up after the first meeting. The students were not only mathematically handicapped beyond description but were very stubborn in terms of behavior and attitude toward teachers. In fact, it is an understatement to say that the students became disengaged while the teachers, who were highly motivated by passion and determination to teach, experienced burnout. The students themselves believed they had poor brains and were destined to be super failures.
In 1974, Jaime Escalante, a Bolivian-born teacher who left Bolivia in the 1960s for the United States, turned what many regarded as impossible at the time into possible. When he arrived at Garfield High School to teach math, many of his colleagues called him a joker and told him that the students were “unteachable.” Yet, he taught the most notorious students in the country, who were mathematically retarded, and turned them into the best-performing mathematics students in the whole of the U.S.A. in the 1980s.
Escalante repeatedly drummed into the ears of these “condemned to fail” students that they had great potential in their brains and that they could be the most intelligent mathematics students in the whole country if they disciplined themselves to work extra hard. The students themselves laughed at him at first when they heard these encouraging words, calling him an unrealistic dreamer. Escalante never got discouraged and persisted until the students agreed to try and follow his advice. Escalante made the students work extra hours every day and even on weekends and on holidays.
Within eight years, Garfield High School, a school that was well known for all the wrong reasons—poor performance, bad behavior of students and others—moved from nowhere to the top of the national charts in math. In 1982, the very students who were condemned to fail and were labeled “unteachable” eight years ago (1974) earned the best test grades in the whole country on advanced placement tests on the most difficult topics in mathematics. With self-discipline and hard work, the worst was transformed into the best.

The story of Jaime Escalante and his students at Garfield High is living proof that no student is beyond redemption, and no academic mountain is too steep to climb. With the right mindset, relentless effort, and unwavering self-discipline, even the most unlikely candidates can become academic champions. The journey from failure to excellence is not paved by luck or innate genius, but by belief, grit, and consistent action. So wherever you are in your academic journey—no matter how far behind you feel—remember this: your past does not define your future. Your effort does. Greatness is not reserved for a select few; it is available to all who are willing to work for it.

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