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- Outline - Writing Checklist - DONE 1. What Am I Really Trying To Say - realtionships are everything including relationship with self - give others an A - so you really listen - so you can establish a relationship - you will both grow; and you will contribute for contibution is what's really fulfilling - by accepting others you accept yourslef; for others are dimensions of your own your perosnality - you have found the enemy - DONE 2. Why Should People Care - people wanna be accepted - it is the Truth, soething what you don't hear often - it will bring clam and lessen the anxiety - DONE 3. What Is The Most Important Point - Give an A - DONE 4. What Is The Easiest Way To Understand The Most Important Point - my letter, and then how it helps me prick myself up from that position of A - DONE 5. How Do I Want The Reader To Feel - 'I already know', 'true', 'resonates' - DONE 6. What Should The Reader Do Next - aware, open and respectful in their next interactions - Give themselves an A. Write the letter. - - DONE 7. In what capacity am I going to address the reader?” (Reporter? Provider of information? Average man or woman?) - A wonderer - DONE 8. “What pronoun and tense am I going to use?” - I, present - TODO 9. What style?” (Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?) - TODO 10. What attitude am I going to take toward the material?” (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?) - TODO 11. How much do I want to cover? - TODO 12. What one point do I want to make? - 12 months ago I wrote a letter to my imaginary teacher... - Give an A today and create possibility - Give yourself an A - Letters/I got my A because - Highlights - At the end of the semester, the grader for the course was instructed to give one-third of the students A’s, one-third B’s and one-third C’s - but in most cases, grades say little about the work done. - Most would recognize at core that the main purpose of grades is to compare one student against another. - The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility. - When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves. Your eye is on the statue within the roughness of the uncut stone. This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into. - “Each student in this class will get an A for the course,” I announce. “However, there is one requirement that you must fulfill to earn this grade: Sometime during the next two weeks, you must write me a letter dated next May, which begins with the words, ‘Dear Mr. Zander, I got my A because . . . ,’ - In writing their letters, I say to them, they are to place themselves in the future, looking back, and to report on all the insights they acquired and milestones they attained during the year as if those accomplishments were already in the past. Everything must be written in the past tense. Phrases such as “I hope,” “I intend,” or “I will” must not appear. - “I am especially interested in the person you will have become by next May. I am interested in the attitude, feelings, and worldview of that person who will have done all she wished to do or become everything he wanted to be.” - I tell them I want them to fall passionately in love with the person they are describing in their letter. - Dearest Teacher Mr. Zander; I received my grade A because I worked hard and thought hard about myself taking your class, and the result was absolutely tremendous. I became a new person. I used to be so negative person for almost everything even before trying. Now I find myself happier person than before. I couldn’t accept my mistakes about a year ago, and after every mistake I blamed myself, but now, I enjoy making mistakes and I really learn from these mistakes. In my playing I have more depth than before. I used to play just notes, but, now, I found out about the I used to be so negative person for almost everything even before trying. Now I find myself happier person than before. I couldn’t accept my mistakes about a year ago, and after every mistake I blamed myself, but now, I enjoy making mistakes and I really learn from these mistakes. In my playing I have more depth than before. I used to play just notes, but, now, I found out about the real meaning of every pieces, and I could play with more imagination. Also I found out my value. I found myself so special person, because I found out that if I believe myself I can do everything. Thank you for all the lessons and lectures because that made me realize how important person I am and also the clear reason why I play music. Thank you, Sincerely, Esther Lee - In this letter, the young performer focuses her gaze on the person she wants to be, momentarily silencing the voice in her head that tells her that she will fail. She emerges like the graceful statue from within Michelangelo’s marble block. The person that I teach each Friday afternoon is the person described in the letter. - Chipping away at the stone that encases her becomes our task in the class. Our job is to remove the extraneous debris that stands between her and her expression in the world. - Small wonder that I approach each class with the greatest eagerness, for this is a class consisting entirely of A students and what is more delightful than spending an afternoon among the stars? - - “In Taiwan,” he explained, I was Number 68 out of 70 student. I come to Boston and Mr. Zander says I am an A. Very confusing. I walk about, three weeks, very confused. I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A student . . . I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A. One day I discover much happier A than Number 68. So I decide I am an A. - This student, in a brilliant flash, had hit upon the “secret of life.” He had realized that the labels he had been taking so seriously are human inventions—it’s all a game. The Number 68 is invented and the A is invented, so we might as well choose to invent something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us. - It is not in the context of measuring people’s performance against standards that we propose giving the A, despite the reference to measurement the A implies. We give the A to finesse the stranglehold of judgment that grades have over our consciousness from our earliest days. The A is an invention that creates possibility for both mentor and student, manager and employee, or for any human interaction. - GIVING AN A is a fundamental, paradigmatic shift toward the realization that it is all invented—the A is invented and the Number 68 is invented, and so are all the judgments in between. - you can give your sullen, lazy, secretive teenager an A, and she will still at that moment be sleeping the morning away. When she awakes, however, the conversation between you and her will go a little differently because she will have become for you a person whose true nature is to participate—however blocked she may be. - When we give an A we can be open to a perspective different from our own. For after all, it is only to a person to whom you have granted an A that you will really listen, - WHEN HE RETIRED from the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked of what accomplishment he was most proud. He answered, simply, “That I did the best I could with what I had.” Could there be any greater acknowledgment? He gave himself an A, and within this framework he was free to speak of errors of judgment, of things he would have done differently had he had access to other views. - Giving yourself an A is not about boasting or raising your self-esteem. It is a framework that allows you to see all of who you are and be all of who you are, without having to resist or deny any part of yourself. - It allows us to reevaluate the grades we assigned to others when we were children, grades that affect our lives now, as legends we live by. - How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are but assessments made by a child? - Why not give some attention to the grades we are handing out? - As soon as you have the grace to give people A’s, all sorts of things are revealed that were as though hidden behind a veil. - However, in the universe of possibility, you certainly can change people. They change as you speak. You may ask, “Who, actually, is doing the changing?” And the answer is the relationship. Because in the arena of possibility, everything occurs in that context.