Comment by Mike Padilla
What an interesting book! I really wasn't sure what this book was about until I got the chance to jump into it this week and I must say, the content is really eye-opening and rather inspirational. I enjoyed each chapter and how they focused on different aspects of our lives and how we view things. In the first chapter, Invented, I thought the comment about the Me'en people of Ehtiopia and their reaction to photographs of people and animals was amazing (pg 11). I never would have imagined such a reaction to viewing photos for the first time. My initial thought would be to view the actual pictures, and not to hold and smell the type of paper! I liked the concept in that everything is already perceived in a certain way so we should look to change our perceptions to improve our lives.
In the second chapter, Universe of Possibility, I enjoyed reading about the 9 dot problem. I remember doing that in elementary school, and it stuck with me through all these years, so it was great reading about how the book viewed that and how we should look to move beyond the imaginary borders in our everyday lives. Again, this chapter focused on how our lives are shaped by assumptions, which was a bit of an eye opener, because I never thought about things like that.
The third chapter, Giving an A, is another remarkable way at looking at things. I liked the quote, "The A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into" (pg 26). I also thought it was great how the book referenced Da Vinci's view on a block of marble and how inside of it is an amazing sculpture. Basically saying that we all are amazing inside, just waiting to be built up! The assignment in which one of the authors had their students write letters from their future selves in order to receive an A in class had me wondering how well something like that would work in my class. While I think it's quite a novel idea... I'm not yet sold on doing it for my students... yet.
The final chapter, Being a Contribution, focuses on how we should all strive to make a difference in the world, even if we don't know how or why.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the first four chapters of this book. It reminds me of one of my favorite books of all time, The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. One quote from The Alchemist is, "...when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too" (pg 150).
@ Mike Padilla
Hi Mike! I completely share with you the idea that this reading was full of inspiration. We are in a very important and crucial moment; we are near from closing an important chapter in our lives that has been full of learning experiences. I personally think that these kinds of readings help us to see a really promising future. We need to consider that even though each of us has a different perspective and different ways to apply solutions, we all have a universe of possibilities where we can contribute and give our best effort to help others with a common goal, make this world become a better place to live. No matter how huge our circle of incidence is, the important thing is that we need to put our heart in everything we do and make things change, improve, and happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment