Elliot Washor's TGIF 01.16.2026

Are you with me now? A. J. Ryder

Here we go! A great way to start the TGIF with some Big Picture Olive Oil, note the font. You never know what business we are getting into.

An article by James Geary taken from his book plucked a set of harmonic overtones for me. Last week at the ImBlaze/B-Unbound meeting when we were discussing how difficult some of this work is, I blurted out, It’s Hard! Now after reading APHORISTIC INTELLIGENCE BEATS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

It’s not just okay for some things in life to be hard—it’s essential. James Geary, I felt way less alone. When so many want efficiency in learning and schooling, we want our students to understand how hard it is to do something well. Aphorisms are not trite memes. They are short and witty but it can take time to really grasp the meaning of what is behind them as they convey that not everything should be easy and quick. As Mike Rose stated so aptly, “When mastery is foregrounded the clock recedes. Seat-time anyone?

Circa 2013

I love reading TGIF’s from our schools. So many times these weekly memos remind me of how much innovative work is being done at our schools without us even knowing and then, once we hear of it, hopefully we incorporate their work as part of the bigger picture. This past week, Jeff Palladino’s TGIF reminded me of BPL’s Alumni Toolkit that mostly remains in limbo but at Fannie. Lou Hamer Alumni Night, they had alums from their first class (about 25 years ago) to the class of 2025. The alums talked about staff relationships, their academic expectations and the feeling of community.

Jeff & Co. had 3 goals for Alumni Night:

1) Help current students connect with Alumni for opportunities, internships, etc.

2) Reconnect ourselves with Alumni, bring them home, celebrate them, get them involved

3) Offer support to our alumni that are in need (Whatever that support looks like) 

In a few weeks we will be going to Fannie Lou for the BPL Leadership Summit in NYC. There’s lots to connect around and I’m gearing up for all the face-to-face meetings not only with Jeff but also with others. For starters, on Simone's recent trip to Jamaica she met with Mark Rosenblum the Head of the Hillel Academy while also making initial connections to the Ministry of Justice. And, just staying for a minute more on international work aside from our trip to Beyond the Box in Barbados in a few weeks to work on the k-8 IBPLC, we have new inquiries from Ankara, Türkiye, The American School Foundation of Guadalajara, Mexico and work in Japan.

& now back to NYC and the Leadership Summit…

Shameka and I have been gearing up for our NYC After Dark time. We will start off with a thread we’ve been pulling on about the pain perfection and the antidotes of mattering and imperfection

Here’s a take from Bob Marley to get started.

Who cares about perfection?

Even the moon is not perfect, it is full of craters.

The sea is incredibly beautiful, but salty and dark in the depths.

The sky is always infinite, but often cloudy.

So, everything that is beautiful isn’t perfect, it’s special.

Stop being “perfect”, but try to be free and live, doing what you love, not wanting to impress others.

 Next week, Andrea, Scott, Taylor and I will be working with Met Sacramento, San Diego Met and New Village Girls Academy for our California Secondary School Redesign work. In Sacramento we will also have dinner at Andrea’s family’s famous restaurant, Frank Fat’s with former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, former Sacramento Unified Supt Jonathan Raymond who is now Supt of Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools. Lexi will also be joining us. If you have time, take a moment and read Frank Fat’s hyperlink about their history with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The parallels to our present situation on immigration are so evident.

On Sunday, thanks to Anthonette, we are going to see and hear George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic at the Music Hall in San Diego. It is a great venue for MLK weekend and a reminder of one of his most quoted sayings - “Free your mind and your ass will follow.” Because of our real-world-learning work long ago I added, Free your ass and your mind will follow. In other words Get Real and Get Out! My first voyage with The Funkadelic’s was in 1969 and my last was with Danique in Providence probably 25 years ago. That said, this week, a fine article by Danique Learning Depends on Living: Health, School, and the Time We Take for Granted appeared in Education Reimagine. After reading it we texted and then spoke. He’s doing great down in Atlanta and as always making the moves into his next work.

In our rush to make sense of the crazy times we are living in I keep reminding myself to also let the meaning of it all reveal itself over time. It is the same kind of work we do with students. We look at growth overtime. As Martin Luther King stated, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,"

HAPPY MLK DAY!

Be well!