The right book changes everything! As I prepare for my next journey with #IMMOOC Season 4, I can’t help but feel like a kid in a candy store. The choices appeal to my core in all facets of my life just like different candies speak to me on different days… in different moods.
#IMMOOC 4 is like walking up to the M&M candy counter and tossing in every shade of chocolate goodness you could possibly desire. Whether it is my Innovators’s Mindset that draws me in to each book’s positive energy or my personal take on life that leaves me inspired to be better and do better, the choices #IMMOOC 4 is offering has me at the EDUCandyCounter with bag in hand!
It really is all about the right book. The book that opens your mind and allows you to wonder…
“What if ?”, say Katie Martin.
So I ask.. what if every student found the right book?
How do you help your students find the right book? What happens when they simply can’t find their way to the gift of reading?
As a child, I couldn’t find my way until one of my elementary teachers read Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. I just connected. I wasn’t exactly a hillbilly, but I had very little. Billy Coleman, a 10 year old boy, was growing up in the Great Depression so he too had very little. What he lacked in money, he made up for in G.R.I.T.. He set himself Goals and took Responsibility for himself. He Imagined excellence in place of perfection to find happiness in all that he achieved. Not to mention his Tough mindset that created opportunities for himself in place of self pity.
It was the right book to help a 10 year old girl see that she had the power to shape her own experiences. You could say that her Innovator’s Mindset helped her to work within her restraints to achieve success. A mindset that kept her from blaming the situation that could have lead to a poor outcome of isolation. The right book changes everything!
How do you open that possibility up for your students? What book could EMPOWER every child? Every child… every walk of life!
Maybe the bigger question should be… what are you reading to create experiences for yourself?
As Katie Martin says in her new book Learner Centered Innovation, “What’s in Your Sphere of Influence?”
Your learning, your growth, your sphere… what does that look like for you?
How do you shape it for yourself?
T.R.U.E. G.R.I.T. 
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