The purpose of this project was to encourage students to analyze how physical and mental challenges help people understand themselves and connect to the world and others by overcoming obstacles and fears. In order to accomplish this project, eighth graders explored, learned and wrote a biography of real life stories of people who have pushed themselves beyond their limits and accomplished unbelievable goals.
Writing this biography helped engage in the steps of the writing process to develop and strengthen writing such as planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. Moreover, it allowed them to use a wide range of grammatical structures and language conventions and write a variety of texts that communicate a clear message, purpose and express diverse perspectives based on effective organization and cohesion of ideas, sentences, and paragraphs; conventions; academic vocabulary; and cultural context. Furthermore, while writing the biography, students answered the 3 Essential Questions that connect what we learn in the classroom with the world:
What kinds of physical and mental obstacles do we face in life?
● How does pushing beyond limits help people
● Should we take risks? Sara successfully accomplished this project by demonstrating inquiry thinking and acting. She planned and revised her written production constantly and worked hard to make sure all the guidelines provided were met. She reflected on how meaningful the unit was for her personal development and mindset regarding life challenges. She was always committed and she finished each stage of the project on time.
Sara's work:
Amy Purdy. We face many kinds of difficulties throughout our lives that are either physical or mental, and they can change depending on what stage of life we are in. For example, at the earliest stages of our lives, we may go through mental and social struggles because social relationships are significant in places such as middle school and high school, adding that we are going through changes in our bodies that are an obstacle we have to overcome.
Other difficulties might come later in life. It depends on how we want to continue our lives and the decisions we make that define our opponents, and the struggles we face in life. Because of this, we should care about the goals and things we want in life to make the right decisions and minimize the obstacles we have to deal with.
There are many ways in which people solve and overcome their obstacles. Some people push themselves to overcome them because it enables their full potential and helps them to improve their performance not only in their problems but also in achieving goals and aspirations. Others ask for support from their loved ones or professionals to help guide and support them while they are dealing with these obstacles. However, people who push themselves beyond their limits may be an opportunity to take doubtful risks that can lead to many different situations but in the end, I think taking risks is an important part of life because it allows us to make mistakes, learn, and improve from them, and catch life opportunities that can change our life completely or improve it positively. How would your life change if you suddenly lost one of your limbs? I guess most people would give up their dreams and goals in life.
Amelia Purdy is an American Paralympic snowboarding medalist, dancer, model, charity co-founder, and motivational speaker. Born November 7th, 1979, she suffered from a bacterial disease that changed her life completely after almost dying and changing her life conditions vaguely. However this didn't stop her from challenging herself into achieving her dreams in snowboarding performance and other activities, unbelievably her positivity and determination lead her to be represented by the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in U.S. history today. The moment when Amy's story started was at the age of 19 when she started to experience flu symptoms. After receiving a septic shock, she went to the hospital and was diagnosed with Neisseria meningitidis; a painful bacterial disease that affects the circulatory system.
Then she experienced multiple organ failures that in consequence caused her to lose circulation in her limbs and extremities. Even though the doctors suggested a 2% chance of survival with the help of many blood transfusions, a kidney transplant from her father, and the amputation of both of her legs, she surprisingly survived. I wonder how lucky she felt to have a father who was willing to risk his life for her. After overcoming those hazardous conditions she challenged herself to achieve her dreams and goals in life even in her condition.
I believe the virtues and values that stand out the most in this part of Amy's story are Kindness and Service because her dad was kind enough to donate her one of his kidneys which proves how important her daughter is to him. Also, it is important to add that cooperation and collaboration can be seen in this event because one of the reasons Amy recovered was because the doctors and her family were able to cooperate and collaborate to reach Amy's recovery using things like a kidney transplant and surgical procedures to increase the survival probability of the opponent that was her disease. Seven months after receiving her prosthetic legs she started to practice snowboarding and a year after her legs got amputated she won third place at a Mammoth Mountain Championship after she was gifted a grant from Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) that enabled her to participate in other United States Championships including the USASA National Snowboarding Championship where she won medals in three events. I wonder how her family felt when she won these championships knowing she is permanently disabled. But her achievements didn't stop there. In 2003 Amy was recruited by CAF as a spokesperson, and due to this, she had to move to San Diego.
There she got involved in modeling and acting to the point she made an appearance in a Madonna music video and a lead actress role in an award-winning film. Due to this, I think that self-evaluation must be part of her life because with the situation of almost losing her life, she was able to self-evaluate, realize how important life is and have the motive to reach her dreams and goals. Moreover, Systems Thinking and Solving Issues are also noticeable because due to her condition and the consequences of it, her life conditions changed vaguely in some ways that can be classified as obstacles. Because of this, when Amy decided to practice snowboarding and achieve all of those things she was able to find a solution or an alternative to the problems caused by her condition, demonstrating her problem-solving skills. In 2005 Purdy and her husband Daniel Gale founded Adaptive Action Sport a Disabled Sports USA section. The reason why she founded this organization was to allow disabled people to succeed and achieve their dreams by training athletes with permanent physical disabilities in extreme sports, arts, and music.
They claim that "AAS programs and events enrich the lives of participants and spectators while demonstrating that "disabled" individuals can live beyond limits." (Our Mission, n.d) showing people with these disabilities can achieve amazing and unbelievable things in their conditions. In May 2011, she made an appearance at a TEDx event in Costa Naranja, California. Her talk was called "living beyond the limits", as you can tell it was about achieving our goals, and how we see difficulties and obstacles in life as negative things rather than opportunities to improve. I guess she came to this conclusion from the experiences of her life. For example phrases like "if your life was a book and you were the author, how would you like your story to be written?" or "Instead (Amy Purdy, 2011) of looking at our challenges and limitations as something negative or bad, we can begin to look at them as blessings, magnificent gifts that can be used to fire our imaginations and help us go further than we ever knew we could go." Motivate us to work harder for goals and dreams in our lives and use the negative aspects as opportunities to imagine different paths and routes to achieve our goals. In this part of Amy's life, I can see the values and virtues of leadership and kindness, and service because she was able to create and lead a foundation for the good of permanently disabled kids to achieve their dreams in life, especially in extreme action sports that shows what Amy is giving, the service she is providing to help the community be better and these kids having opportunities to get through this struggles and achieve amazing things in life.
The thing about which Amy stands out the most is being a good role model because, unlike others, with her determination and endurance she was surprisingly able to recover from a very horrible disease, and achieve her dreams and goals like being successful in modeling, acting careers, and being the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in U.S. history today in her condition.
What I love about Amy's story is that her actions and achievements show people that difficulties and limitations shouldn't stop us from working hard and achieving our dreams and they should not be seen as negative things. Instead, they can be an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective and look for other paths to achieve our dreams. In other words, I'm asking you to see your life's obstacles positively to help you look for alternatives and ways to use them as an advantage.
Sara's reflection upon her learning process: After learning about pushing yourself to the limits and learning to establish boundaries regarding your relationships, work, and amazing people like Amy as an example of how people with obstacles and struggles can find alternatives and different ways to achieve their dreams and goals. I can say that working on this assignment has helped me connect and find motivation to apply SHICKEL and THISREAL in my life because I learned that things like Kindness and Service, Self-evaluation, Solving issues, Cooperation and Collaboration are important when achieving your goals and looking for what you what in your life. Life competencies allow us to improve and grow as a person learning how to relate well with others to achieve a common goal, learn to deal with obstacles, find solutions to our problems, and how to be a systemic citizen providing service and good actions in the name of the community.
I have learned these things through the actions of the people mentioned in the unit like Amy and Yuko Arimori. They demonstrate these pillars in the actions and the decisions they made to achieve their goals like Amy being responsible for providing a foundation for kids with disabilities to enhance their abilities in extreme sports that shows the use of Kindness and Service and Leadership because she is providing and leading a service for the good of the community. Another example is Yuko who self-evaluated and grew as a person regardless of her problems with her legs, and after practicing a lot of years, became one of the best high school runners in her city which proves her Self assessment and Self-evaluation. So, in conclusion, doing this assignment and overall learning in this unit has helped me realize that these pillars are important in life because it affects positively how we act and the decisions we make are the ones that can determine our future and other aspects in life.
References:
Amy Purdy (2022, May 13). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://es-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Amy_Purdy?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl =en&_x_tr_tr_pto=sc Our Mission. (n.d.).
Adaptive Action Sports. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from http://adacs.org/our-mission Amy’s Story. (2022). In Amy Purdy. https://amypurdy.com/about/
The purpose of this project was to encourage students to analyze how physical and mental challenges help people understand themselves and connect with the world and others by overcoming obstacles and fears. To carry out this project, eighth graders explored, learned about, and wrote a biography of real-life stories of people who have pushed themselves beyond their limits and achieved incredible goals.
Writing this biography helped them engage in the steps of the writing process to develop and strengthen writing, such as planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. In addition, it enabled them to use a wide range of grammatical structures and linguistic conventions and write a variety of texts that communicate a clear message, purpose, and express diverse perspectives based on effective organization and cohesion of ideas, sentences, and paragraphs; conventions; academic vocabulary; and cultural context. In addition, while writing the biography, students answered the 3 Essential Questions that connect what we learn in the classroom to the world:
● What kinds of physical and mental obstacles do we face in life?
● How does pushing boundaries help people?
● Should we take risks? Sara successfully completed this project by demonstrating inquiry thinking and acting. She consistently planned and revised her written output and worked hard to ensure that all guidelines provided were adhered to. She reflected on how significant the unit was to her personal development and mindset regarding life's challenges. She was always committed and completed each stage of the project on time.
Sara's work:
Amy Purdy. Throughout our lives we face many types of difficulties, whether they are physical or mental, and they can change depending on what stage of life we are in. For example, in the early stages of our life, we may go through mental and social difficulties, because social relationships are important in places like middle school and high school, plus we are going through changes in our body that are an obstacle that we have to overcome.
Other difficulties may come later in life. It depends on how we want to continue our life and the decisions we make that define our opponents, and the struggles we face in life. Therefore, we should be concerned about the goals and things we want in life to make the right decisions and minimize the obstacles we have to face.
There are many ways for people to resolve and overcome their obstacles. Some people push themselves to overcome them because it allows them to realize their full potential and helps them to improve their performance not only in their problems but also in achieving their goals and aspirations. Others ask for support from loved ones or professionals for guidance and support as they face these obstacles. However, people pushing themselves beyond their limits can be an opportunity to take questionable risks that can lead to many different situations, but in the end, I believe that taking risks is an important part of life because it allows us to make mistakes, learn and improve from them, and catch life opportunities that can change our life completely or positively enhance it. How would your life change if you suddenly lost one of your limbs? I guess most people would give up on their dreams and goals in life.
Amelia Purdy is an American Paralympic snowboard medalist, dancer, model, charity co-founder and motivational speaker. Born on November 7, 1979, she suffered a life-changing bacterial illness that almost killed her and vaguely changed her living conditions. However, this did not stop her from challenging herself to achieve her dreams in snowboarding performance and other activities, incredibly her positivity and determination led her to be represented by the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in U.S. history today. The moment Amy's story began at the age of 19, when she began experiencing flu symptoms. After receiving septic shock, she went to the hospital and was diagnosed with Neisseria meningitidis, a painful bacterial disease that affects the circulatory system.
He then experienced multiple organ failures which, as a consequence, caused him to lose circulation in his limbs and extremities. Despite doctors suggesting a 2% chance of survival with the help of many blood transfusions, a kidney transplant from her father and the amputation of her two legs, she surprisingly survived. I wonder if she felt lucky to have a father willing to risk his life for her. After overcoming those dangerous conditions, she challenged herself to achieve her dreams and goals in life even in her condition.
I think the virtues and values that stand out the most in this part of Amy's story are Kindness and Service because her father was kind enough to donate one of his kidneys to her which shows how important his daughter is to him. Also, it is important to add that cooperation and collaboration can be seen in this event because one of the reasons Amy recovered was because the doctors and her family were able to cooperate and collaborate to achieve Amy's recovery using things like a kidney transplant and surgical procedures to increase the likelihood of survival from the opponent that was her disease. Seven months after receiving her prosthetic legs she began snowboarding and a year after her legs were amputated she won third place in a Mammoth Mountain championship after receiving a Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) scholarship that allowed her to participate in other U.S. championships, including the USASA National Snowboard Championships, where she won medals in three events. I wonder how his family felt when he won these championships knowing that he has a permanent disability. But her accomplishments didn't stop there. In 2003 Amy was hired by CAF as a spokesperson, and because of this she had to relocate to San Diego.
There she pursued modeling and acting, to the point where she appeared in a Madonna music video and had a lead actress role in an award-winning movie. Because of this, I believe that self-evaluation must be part of her life because with the situation of almost losing her life, she was able to self-evaluate, realize how important life is and have the motive to achieve her dreams and goals. In addition, systems thinking and problem solving are also remarkable because due to her condition and the consequences of it, her life conditions changed vaguely in some aspects that can be classified as obstacles. Because of this, when Amy decided to snowboard and accomplish all those things she was able to find a solution or an alternative to the problems caused by her condition, demonstrating her problem solving skills. In 2005 Purdy and her husband Daniel Gale founded Adaptive Action Sport, an arm of Disabled Sports USA. Her motive for founding this organization was to enable people with disabilities to succeed and achieve their dreams by training athletes with permanent physical disabilities in extreme sports, arts and music.
Afirman que “los programas y eventos de AAS enriquecen la vida de los participantes y los espectadores a la vez que demuestran que los individuos “discapacitados” pueden vivir más allá de los límites.” (Our Mission, n.d) mostrando que las personas con estas discapacidades pueden lograr cosas asombrosas e increíbles en sus condiciones. En mayo de 2011, hizo una aparición en un evento TEDx en Costa Naranja, California. Su charla se llamaba “vivir más allá de los límites”, como se puede deducir trataba sobre la consecución de nuestros objetivos, y cómo vemos las dificultades y los obstáculos en la vida como cosas negativas en lugar de oportunidades para mejorar. Supongo que llegó a esta conclusión por las experiencias de su vida. Por ejemplo frases como “si tu vida fuera un libro y tú fueras el autor, ¿cómo te gustaría que se escribiera tu historia?” o “En lugar (Amy Purdy, 2011) de ver nuestros retos y limitaciones como algo negativo o malo, podemos empezar a verlos como bendiciones, magníficos regalos que pueden ser utilizados para encender nuestra imaginación y ayudarnos a llegar más lejos de lo que nunca supimos que podríamos llegar.” Nos motivan a trabajar más duro por las metas y los sueños de nuestra vida y a utilizar los aspectos negativos como oportunidades para imaginar caminos y rutas diferentes para alcanzar nuestras metas. En esta parte de la vida de Amy, puedo ver los valores y las virtudes del liderazgo y la bondad, y el servicio porque ella fue capaz de crear y liderar una fundación para el bien de los niños con discapacidades permanentes para lograr sus sueños en la vida, especialmente en los deportes de acción extrema que muestra lo que Amy está dando, el servicio que está proporcionando para ayudar a la comunidad a ser mejor y a estos niños a tener oportunidades para superar estas luchas y lograr cosas increíbles en la vida.
What stands out most about Amy is that she is a good role model because, unlike others, with her determination and resilience she was amazingly able to recover from a very horrible disease, and achieve her dreams and goals such as being successful in modeling, acting careers, and being the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in U.S. history in her condition.
What I love about Amy's story is that her actions and accomplishments show people that difficulties and limitations should not stop us from working hard and achieving our dreams, and that they should not be seen as something negative. On the contrary, they can be an opportunity to see things from a different perspective and look for other ways to achieve our dreams. In other words, I ask you to see the obstacles in your life in a positive way to help you look for alternatives and ways to use them to your advantage.
Sara's reflection on her learning process: After learning about pushing yourself to the limits and learning to set boundaries regarding your relationships, work, and amazing people like Amy as an example of how people with obstacles and struggles can find alternatives and different ways to achieve their dreams and goals. I can say that working on this assignment has helped me connect and find the motivation to apply SHICKEL and THISREAL in my life because I learned that things like kindness and service, self-assessment, problem solving, cooperation and collaboration are important when it comes to achieving your goals and pursuing what you want in your life. Life skills allow us to improve and grow as a person by learning to relate well with others to achieve a common goal, to learn to face obstacles, to find solutions to our problems and to be a systemic citizen by providing service and good deeds on behalf of the community.
I have learned these things through the actions of the people mentioned in the unit such as Amy and Yuko Arimori. They demonstrate these pillars in the actions and decisions they made to achieve their goals such as Amy who is responsible for providing a foundation for children with disabilities to improve their skills in extreme sports which shows the use of kindness and service and leadership because she is providing and leading a service for the good of the community. Another example is Yuko who self-evaluated and grew as a person despite her leg problems, and after practicing for many years, she became one of the best runners in the high school in her city which shows her Self-Evaluation and Self-Assessment. So, in conclusion, doing this assignment and the overall learning in this unit has helped me realize that these pillars are important in life because it positively affects how we act and the decisions we make are the ones that can determine our future and other aspects in life.
References:
Amy Purdy (2022, May 13). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://es-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Amy_Purdy?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl =en&_x_tr_pto=sc Our mission. (n.d.).
Deportes de acción adaptados. Recuperado el 5 de octubre de 2022, de http://adacs.org/our-mission La historia de Amy. (2022). En Amy Purdy. https://amypurdy.com/about/
Natasha Restrepo
Grade 8 Real World English Teacher
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