“People may say things will change, but then things go back to the way they were before,” Sternberg said. Just like when he was a boy, teachers are still too quick to judge a child’s potential based on narrow, abstract tests—a fact he has witnessed in the education of his own children, one of whom is now a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. “I have five kids and all of them at one time or another have been diagnosed as potential losers,” he said, “and they’ve done fine.”
Old habits are hard to change
