Write America

This is probably the most important blog I have ever written.

It is not just the last of my Sunday blog entries for the month of April.

Because I have been helping others change their life through visualization and my other teachings for going on 40 years now. However, today, I am going to ask you to help me.

And I am confident that those who know of my work, have been touched with my work, will step up for me, starting today, in a big way. Because they know my heart is in the right place and they know how committed I have been to this force which has been brewing in me for some time now.

But I finally realized I can no longer do it on my own.

Sleep deprived I have been over the course of the past several weeks, I have come to realize why I have reached the point I have arrived at this very moment.

I have tried to do this alone.

Today, I ask you to join me.

And this is why.........

Yesterday, I wrote about a little school in Miami which was a breakthrough in my life.

When the life of a a CPA in the suit no longer appealed to me, I walked out of the glass tower on Alhambra Street on the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables, Florida and into the Deerborne School practically next door.

What drove me to that school?

I had no idea.

For the past 30 plus years, I have thought little about that day.

Now, I can think of little else.

Because on that day, I made a full time commitment to help others before I helped myself.

Now, I ask you to join me in that decision........

My teaching didn't get off to a good start.

When I had first started teaching in the South Bronx, a few years earlier, I had introduced a couple of innovative techniques that motivated the students, but angered the powers to be.

This time, I angered all parties.

It started with my vocabulary based on my growing involverment in the field of visualization.

I didn't call it visualization in 1978.

That word wasn't used then.

I called it associations.

And it almost got me fired that first week.....

That first week, the word list might have included words such as psychiatrisat, psychologist, paleontologist, fatuous, fractious, facetious amd fictitious.

Let's use those seven words for the matter of my illustartion of what happened that first week,

I planned on giving a different type of vocabulary test that very first week and that first Friday morning. It might have gone something like this.


1,___paleontologist


2.___psychiatrist


3.___fatuous


4.___fictitious


5.___fractious


6.___facetious


7.___psychologist


Seven simple words.

and in the matching column to the right of the that week's vocabulary words, it might have gone like this.

A. They start lining up for early bird dinners at 4:30 PM

B. Moe, Larry and Curly perform not for the serious minded.

C. You won't find any pills in her office.

D. Mr. Stephen King

E. Saturday Night Live

F. graduated medical school

G. Watts Riots



Words that few would argue belong in a person's vocabulary if that vocabulary is of an advanced nature.

Yet, these or seven similar words caused a small riot on the Coral Gables campus that first week in 1978 and soon, I was fighting for my job in the office of the headmaster.

I think it might have been a smug senior who today is a vice-president of media giant, Time Warner, who approached me at my desk.

Mr. Tarde, he began.

I think we have a problem here.

I barely looked yp from my New York Post which was filling me in on the Yankees opportunity to get back to the World Series for the third straight season.

Just match the best association in column B with the word in column A.

Alfredo limped back to his desk and the only sound for the next few minutes came from the portable air conditioner which kept the room cool in the Florida mugginess.

It was a few miinutes, later that Alfredo was back for more.

Sir, there is really a problem with this test.

And what would that be.

Well, in column B sir, you have as one of the choices:

They line up for early bird at 4:30 PM.

Yes, I responded.

Well, Mr, Tarde and Alfredo was beginning to sweat now.

Yes.

Mr, Tarde, with all due respect sir. What the heck does that have to do with this vocabulary test?

Someone must have agreed with Alfred's intrepid decision to challenge me, because she shouted from the back row.

Yeah and what does letter C mean?

You won't find any pills in her office.

Seems straight forward, I ventured.

No sir, Alfred was trying his best to keep his voice under control here, but at eighteen years of age, it kept cracking slightly.

That's just it sir, none of these answers make any sense.

Where are the definitions, sir?

That's what we learned.

Definitions.

There is not a single matching definition to these vocabulary words.

So? I responded.

So? Alfredo demanded. What do you mean so?

I mean what is your point?

My point, sir, is that test makes no sense and we are all going to fail.

Do you know these words, Alfredo?

I know the definitions, sir. I studied them.

I didn't ask you that, Alfredo.

I asked you if you know the words.

Alfredo was about to cry.

Again sir, I must respectfully say, you are making no sense here.

Now the class was beginning to laugh nervously.

If I was back in the South Bronx, this mught have been the time whwre the students began walking on their deesks and threatening to rip everything off the classroom walls , not to mention what they might do to any teacher who got in their way.

In the end, I was called on the carpet.

Mr. Cone, the visionary headmaster, laughed when he heard my explanation.

I don't think I ever saw a matching test where earlybird diners were matched with paleontology.

I said nothing.

Are you comparing the senior citizens in Miami to the study of fossils?

I guess I am sir, but that's really not my purpose.

It seems to me that it is exactly your purpsoe.

No sir, the importance here is what the students believe.

I don't want them to rent the word. I want them to own it.

Mr. Cone stared at the test paper and let out a shriek.

Brilliant!

This one, Mt. Tarde. I especially like this one.

You won't find any pills in her office.

That would be the psychologist who is not able to write prescriptions as opposed to the psychiatrist.

Yes, sir.

Hmmmm

I will be dam....

And this one, fatouos.....I assume the answer would be Moe, Larry and Curly.

Dis anyone got that correct, Mt. Tarde.

I think there were a couple, sir.

A couple out of how many?

That would be 18 sir.

Mr. Cone banged his fist on the desk like a pretulant child.

I love it! I love it!

The headmaster rubbed his chin and after a few more moments, he spoke again.

I am going to tell you what I am going to do, Mr. Tarde.

Fire me?

Fire you?

Hell no!

I have never had more fun in my 29 plus years on campus,

No, Mr, Tarde. I am going to give you a raise.

I gulped.

I want you to keep giving these seniors the same tests with those what do you call them?

Associations.

Yeah, with those associtions.

How would you define an association?

The picture which comes to your mind when you think of the word.

You mean like when I think of fictitious, rather than yhinking of the boring definition, which I can hardly remember anyway, I flash a picture in my mind like the one you have on this test.

Stephen King, sir.

Yes, that King felow. Is he any good?

Yes sir, a most prolific writer.

Prolific, you say.

Yes, Sir,

I love it.

OK Mr. Tarde, we're done here. You go back to your classroom and you keep teaching your way with associations and paragraph writing and that breakthrough stuff you bring to the table and from me, you will get nothing but 100% support.

And that's how my job was saved that day.

Now, 30 plus years later, taht same Alfredo wants to take my groundbreaking, but very pedestrian work in the field of vocabulary, to a national level.

So that every student in America. especially the ones who are not on a level playing field can own the power of words and the ability to write a meaningful paragraph.

I can tell you that in my humble opinion, such a skill would change lives.

So, that's why I am going to ask you today to give what you can to help me bring the

teachings of Write America to as may American students as possible.

Together, we can change the course of American education.

One association at a time.

One mental image at a time.

One word at a time.

Ome written paragraph at a time.

Will you help me to help others.

Give what you can.

Together we can make a difference.

And like it has for me, it will come back to you.


There is a destiny that makes us brothers
None goes his way alone
All that we send into the lives of others
comes back into our own