Saturday, May 19, 2012

Week 3 Comment on Tricia Slechta’s Art of Possibility chapters 5-9 post


Tricia,

I took away a lot of the same points that you did from this week’s reading!

The story about the cellist who learned to play with passion, enabling him to find a job worthy of his talents, didn’t really stand out for me until the explication of the Beyond the Fuck It rule—after that it stuck! There are so many times when I am tempted to finish something halfway, or leave a task completed with half the effort. I will have to remember that I should move beyond that state of mind and hold myself to a higher standard.

I was surprised when Benjamin Zander wrote that he had mentioned the rule when he visited an all-girls Catholic school and repeated the rule there. I wonder if that was the school where I work; I can definitely see the nun who used to be the head of school adopting that as her motto!


The video that you posted at the end of your comments was really interesting. (You’re definitely a glass-half-full type!) Thanks! -Kim

Tricia’s post


The reading for this week was very profound!  Rule #6 is a story that I would like to share with so many co-workers!  In fact I did.  I went to work the next day after reading the story and a co-worker had to deal with a very uncomfortable situation so I told her the story about rule #6 she loved it!  It made her day much better; she made me a sticky note with Rule # 6 on it and stuck it on my file cabinet and she made one for herself.  My superintendent also enjoyed the story and returned my email stating that he had been sharing a similar story to others earlier in the week.  Rule #6 is a great diffuser. 
The second profound statement is “beyond the fuck it” now that is a little trickier to share.  I appreciate the meaning behind the statement but I just do not feel comfortable sharing that with high school students and my co-workers I am afraid that on Fridays a few of my co-workers may change the sequence of some of those words J Love the idea! We all need to live our life, “beyond the **** it” (sorry couldn’t type it again) Which leads me to my next favorite section of this weeks read the glass half full and half empty.
I feel that I am a person who always views the glass half full so I felt completely validated when the reading said that half full is the physical reality.  I then enjoyed reading about the downward spiral and conversations for the possibility.  I wish teachers would step back and evaluate their conversation style, is it the downward spiral style or where do I go from here.  I think if more educators really looked deep inside and reflected the reason why change is slow in coming is because many have the tendency to be conversing and acting in the downward spiral mode rather than where do we go from here mode.  I know several educators that stay out of the teacher’s lounge because they do not want to be trapped in a downward spiral   conversation and I suppose instead of avoidance they should be the one to go in and turn that downward spiral into an anything is possible.  Maybe it would be easier to just buy multiple copies of this book and highlight certain passages and hand them out as needed!

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