Entry 3 - Wk4 Comments to Pamela Hickman: Art of Possibility Ch. 9-12

Week 4-Blog Post 2-The Art of Posibilities Ch. 9-12

Pamela Hickman's Comments:
This weeks reading was very good. I would have to say the whole book was very good I liked how it talks about like possibilities from every angle imaginable. I really enjoyed chapter 10 talking about our life being a game board. It seems like my students over the past couple of years have this sense of "entitlement" there is no self responsibility anywhere. I have noticed students will say "that teacher gave me an F" instead of "I earned an F in math." This generation of kids are looking to blame someone every time something goes wrong in their life. I like how the booked refers to life a board and we are going to make choices and mistakes, but we have to learn from them. Sometimes we have to put our pride to the side and say "yes this is my fault how do I fix it?" I try to teach my students you are not entitled to anything the successes you get in life are earned, but so many students think that they are going to make millions of dollars have a perfect life without hard work. I hate to say this but that is not reality. People in general want to blame diffrent people for hardship and bad things, but the ugly truth is sometime we make mistakes and have to learn from them.

I lost my brother four years ago to this "game" called the choking game. I was so heartbroken over the lose of my brother. I just wanted to blame the kids that showed him how to "play." I wanted to blame the God, but I didn't want to blame him for doing it. I guess we never want to blame the people we love for bad things that hurt us. The ugly truth was my bother made the choice to play and the consequence was that he died at 19-years-old. I guess in that first year of losing my brother I just wanted life to stop and people to just piety my situation. I got alone with God and my Bible and realized life hasn't stopped people will not continue to piety my situation. I began to think OK this has happened know what can I do to make a difference. My family and I began to give speeches to youth groups in churches in the area about the dangers of the "Choking Game." My family and I didn't want this to happen to another family so we are trying to make a difference through educating parents and teens on the deadly game. My challenge to everyone is this when God allows bad things to happen to you use it to help others. God allows bad things to happen to good people because He knows that we can handle the bad thing and use it for His Glory.

Posted by Pamela at 3:10 PM

My Comments to Pamela:
Pamela,

What a heartfelt blog post! I think it is interesting that human nature is always ready and prepared to point the proverbial finger at anyone but themselves when they should be looking at in the mirror in the first place to evaluate what they could have done differently (which I do believe has some biblical application). I think today's student/individual spends so much effort on how to cast their problems onto someone else rather than "being the board" and looking at life from that perspective. I think as teachers, we shoulder a lot of the burden in attempting to persuade our students into believing that they can accomplish something great in their lives, but we also must realize that at some point the student must be the one that has to take that initiative and discover their own art of possibility. And as a educator, I am always trying to be a catalyst in each of my students' lives to be the one that generates that spark of possibility that encourages them to take that risk that leads them down their "road of passion" so-to-speak. But at some point, I must be content with the fact that I have done my best to reach each student and now it is up to them.

Anyways, I was really touched and inspired by what you shared about your brother. I know that with the strength of God, you and your family have seen the positives that came from this event in your lives. As hard as that is to understand at times, those are the instances that God uses to give us clarity and perspective about certain aspects of this thing called life that we would have never understood before. Thanks for sharing Pamela!