Giving an A

Ben Zander is one of my favourite people in the world — and up to this point I literally have only read one quote and two articles about him. But after reading this I am going to order this.

Ben is conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, and a pretty inspirational guy.

Ben… was faced with the same problem every year for 25 years: Teaching students who were in such a chronic state of anxiety over the measurement of their performance, they were reluctant to take creative risks…decided the best approach would be to give everyone an A, at the beginning of the course. The A was not intended as a way to measure someone’s performance against standards, but as an instrument to open them up to new possibilities.

Students were required to write a letter that began with “Dear Mr. Zander, I got my A because…” and they had to describe in as much detail as possible, how they came to achieve this “extraordinary grade.”

In writing their letters, Zander said students must “place themselves in the future, looking back, and report on all the insights they acquired and 25 mg paxil the 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.”

Give all your kids in your childrens ministry an A for performance this year. Start with your engaged kids… the ones who learn the memory verses, and tend to remember what you said last week. Then give the kids who present somewhat of a challenge an ‘A’ as well.

What needs to change in their behaviour to get an ‘A’? And more importantly what needs to change in YOUR behaviour to ensure they get an ‘A’.

NOTE: I am not, of course, implying that we want to grade our kids, just the concept that we are all familiar with having most likely grown up in school.