Changing a negative around
School is so close to being done for another year. Yesterday I decided to put a quote in my final newsletter with the reports and then talk about it with my class. (I had read it in a blog the night before and it jumped out at me so I wrote it down.) Life is not just the 10% that happens to you, but about the 90% of how you respond to it. The kids came in and one girl kept complaining about being in school. She refused to read quietly (our morning routine) even when I tempted her with a reward. She pouted and emoted negativity through everything we did, refusing to talk in the community circle. When I drew a pie graph to illustrate the percentages, and started listing all the things 8 and 9 year olds can't change, I made sure to include being at school when you wanted to be at the beach. All the kids struggled to think of positive responses, so we listed many negative ones and then worked to find the opposite. (We're wired for complaining and negativity, aren&#