It doesn't make sense for me: "He teaches his students how change works on historical and personal scale"

Question

I've found the sentence when reading on the movie "Half Nelson", about a Broklyn teacher trying his students get to be a good ones, but being disappointed by the fact reality is a hard enemy against his idealism. So "how change works" won't be better expressed as "how working changes?" or "how works (as for studyng) changes" The way it is said is a little confusing for me; maybe I'm stranded, stuck and it's esier than I thing. What's your point please?

Answer 1

He's say how a change in behavoir makes a difference in the big picture as well as in an individual's life. It can be a voluntary change or a forced change, and isn't limited to, say, one person's effort (work.) For example, people who formerly used typewriters are being forced to change to computer word processing-- not something all want to do, but have to as typewriter supplies become increasingly difficult to obtain. So the rise of computers has both historical and personal consquences-- they've changed society as a whole but also an individual's way of doing things.