MAC_Week 3: Comment #2 – Kimberly Duran's Blog

My Comment for Kimberly Duran:

Kim,

What a creative way of you to help your student see that walking around negative all the time is more harmful to his future than seeing the world as a good and positive place. We all have ups and downs but how we handle those times is what makes us or breaks us. I know that for a while I was very negative about things, I call it the "why me syndrome".  When I was in there I didn't make good decisions (if I made any) and I had to get out of it.  Now even if I make the wrong decision, I look at what I did or didn't do correctly, learn from it, make adjustments and move ahead. I don't think kids are taught that today and I think this book is really talking about that. I hate when people complain about everything, what good does that do?

Kimberly Duran's Blog Post:

I really enjoyed the Babe analogy in Chapter 7-The Way Things Are. I have seen this movie so many times and it went so well with how the authors were trying to get their points across about being present to the way things are. I have a student that I swear this chapter was written for. He is what I call an Eeyore kid. Kind of negative all the time, walking around with a rain cloud over him. Always making road blocks instead of paths. Being much like the cow in the analogy, the oh well that's the way things are kind of mentality. I showed him a couple of snippets of the movie Babe after reading this chapter, and then we spoke about being present to the way things are instead of just accepting things the way they are. How this type of thinking is a catalyst for change, and how this could help him to improve his way of thinking. He really enjoyed the analogy as well and said that it pointed things out to him in a different way and really put things in perspective. The simple trick of turning the word but into and was like magic. He and I have been trying to find ways to turn more dreary outlooks into positive experiences. I just LOVE this book, it has been so insightful on so many levels. I have found so many uses for the things I have learned, I really am floored by all the great stuff and thankful we were given the opportunity to read it!!