Elliot Washor's TGIF 05.29.2026

Are You With Me Now? A.J. Ryder

Remembering Sonny

Thinking about our students

I never stop being in awe of the scholarships and awards that come out of The Met’s Entrepreneurial Center.

This year, Met students won both first and second place at the Transform Rhode Island Scholarship (TRIS) awards.

First place: Rio Vierra Spears, a 10th grader, received a $25,000 scholarship and an additional $1 million investment to bring his idea to life: connecting teens with senior centers through AI workshops and technology support.

Second place: Evan Perez, a 12th grader, received a $15,000 scholarship. The judges were so impressed with his proposal for a mobile AI learning van that they awarded an additional $50,000 to support the project. Evan recently also earned a four-year Babson College scholarship through NFTE.

Why does this happen so often at The Met?

The simple answer is that we have created a learning environment where students can genuinely exercise agency around what they want to do and become.

Of the 500 applicants statewide for the TRIS competition, 142 came from The Met. Why are the numbers so skewed? What can Met students do that others can’t? It’s worth thinking about.

A few days ago, I was on a call with Alisha Daga, one of our graduates from The Next School in Mumbai. Alisha is entering her senior year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is doing exceptional work in IT.

She is also staying deeply connected to her community. Alisha is proposing that the campus organization Design for America (DFA) take on BPLiving as one of its projects. DFA is an award-winning national nonprofit that equips university students with human-centered design and innovation skills to create local social impact.

I always enjoy talking with alumni and asking what they carried forward from their BPL school experience. In Alisha’s case, it never left her. She continues to think about community and what it means to belong to one. We are staying connected around this work by linking her efforts to the ongoing BPLiving work that Taylor is leading.

On another BPL front, I spoke with BPL coach Simone Smith about her upcoming trip to Jamaica, where among other things BPL, she will be exploring connections between BPLiving and local communities. After our conversation, I connected her with our board member, Dr. Marsha-Gail Davis, who has ties to Jamaica and has also introduced me to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, where she serves as Director-at-Large on the board.

Part of this week was spent preparing for two important meetings. The first is next week’s meeting with former BPL board member Frank Wilson. Andrea and I will be traveling to Portland, Oregon, to meet with Frank and Carrie Ferguson. The purpose of the visit is to support our K–8 IBPLC work as we continue exploring how hand and tacit learning can be integrated more fully into the framework.

As usual, Frank has already given us plenty to think about. Here is one idea that should make all of us pause and perhaps rethink our assumptions about “performance” assessment in favor of something more meaningful.

Frank argues that assessment of hand and tacit learning should focus less on external outcomes or grades and more on the quality of feedback and the learner’s lived experience while making, doing, and practicing. He emphasizes kinesthetic awareness—what learners notice and feel in their own bodies as action unfolds—and suggests that expert teaching often involves helping students slow down, attend to sensations, and recognize both moments of flow and moments of difficulty, rather than relying solely on end-result measures.

For Frank, meaningful assessment captures how learners develop self-awareness, use feedback, and come to experience making as a process of discovery and invention—not simply as performance judged by external criteria.

I like taking my cues from people beyond the education world, and this visit will undoubtedly open our eyes to other ways of knowing. I can’t wait.

The second meeting involves the work of the START Center initiative in New Jersey. Charlie, Joe Youcha, Dan Wright, and I are developing a two-day agenda for our first gathering of all the implementers and partners involved in the work.

The short version is this:

The New Jersey START Center initiative is a growing statewide effort to design how young people move from school into high-wage, high-demand careers in the skilled trades. START Centers serve as coordinating hubs that bring together schools, unions, industry partners, and workforce systems. Students—as early as eighth grade—engage in exploring their interests across multiple settings through internships, training programs, certifications, college coursework, and paid summer employment centered on meaningful work.

Led by Big Picture Learning through our B-Unbound program, and in partnership with the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and a broad network of education and workforce organizations, the initiative is already moving beyond pilot phase into early scale.

Together, we are building a new and sustainable pathway into apprenticeships beginning at age 18—dramatically earlier than the current average age of 28.

I’ve been looking forward to this gathering for quite some time. Bringing together the entire network of teams and partners is a significant undertaking, and an exciting one.

Next week brings our trip to Portland, which will inform our work in New Jersey. Then it’s off to NJ, where we’ll be gathering in the midst of the NBA Finals and the World Cup.

The Restless Genius of Jazz

One of my faves, ‘Native New Yorker’, "saxophone colossus" Sonny Rollins passed away at 95 this week. He was the last surviving person featured in Art Kane’s iconic photograph A Great Day in Harlem, standing near his mentor, Thelonious Monk. What an incredible life.

Be well.