Elliot Washor's TGIF 09.05.2025

Are you with me now? A. J. Ryder

When Albert Einstein met Charlie Chaplin in 1931, Einstein said, "What I admire most about your art is its universality. You do not say a word, and yet the world understands you." "It's true", replied Chaplin, "But your fame is even greater. The world admires you, when no one understands you."

Charlie didn’t talk and no one understood Al when he did speak. What a pair. Two of the most recognizable people in their day and for that matter even today. What would schools do with kids who didn’t talk or no one understood when they did? How would they be treated? Just for the record. Chaplin was done with school at 13 and Einstein dropped out of school at 15 and self-educated for college. ‘Nuff said.

This week, I visited the Wonderful College Prep Academy in Lost Hills. When they named it Lost Hills they meant it. In between Fresno and Bakersfield, it took me twice as long to drive once I got to Fresno than my 49-minute plane ride from San Diego to Fresno. The school is pre-k-12 with incredible resources for the students, teachers, families and community. Their breakfast and lunch programs are second to none both health wise and for their aesthetics and they are free for students and teachers. Teachers get a $5k bonus for teaching in a rural community. The campus looks like The Met and has a feeling of calm in an era of high stress for this farming community. They have medical, social and psychological services for the entire community for free and their fitness center is amazing. All that said, what I was there for was to discuss how a small community of 2,000 that sends so many of their first gen students to a four-year college via their dual enrollment program with the community colleges isn’t generating meaningful work for students who come back from college with their degrees. Every community has its challenges and the remoteness of Lost Hills even with all of these amenities has theirs. Our discussion was around how we do internships and how they can modify what we do to fit their community’s needs so students build social capital. We also discussed new ways to start new work generated by students. It was a good beginning conversation. On my drive back to Fresno aside from being on our regularly scheduled Wednesday Meeting, I had a few thoughts about how Lost Hills’ students could take what they are doing in the school around well-being, health and lifestyle changes to develop a community wide effort that creates work about a healthy community. The Wonderful Company makes for a wonderful partner to let students have a go at developing work around healthy living as a design for a town. What a great way to start new work that is meaningful and matters.

  Part 2 – Perfectionism and Mattering –

First to set the stage, a few lines from the song - You’re the Top, a duet sung by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga written by Cole Porter in 1931. Here each singer in love with the other extolls how perfect their lover is while feeling not worthy of them in the refrain. 

You're the Nile

You're the Tower of Pisa

You're the smile on the Mona Lisa

I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop

But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top

You’re The Top – Cole Porter sung by as a duet by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

And the beat goes on!

Last week I got quite a few responses about The Pain of Perfectionism by Leslie Jamison that I wrote about in my TGIF. But before those responses came in, I had my regularly scheduled call with Shameka about the After Dark podcast series. Right then and there, I mentioned the article and without reading it Shameka immediately connected personally to the ‘pain of perfectionism.’ It is now the topic of our first podcast. Without giving too much away, for part of the podcast we had the After Dark conversation about having to be “twice as good” first, as a Black woman as the author of the article references and then to ‘John Henryism’ in deference to the song about John Henry who died with the hammer in his hand trying to be perfect and beat the steam hammer. The podcast hit on so many issues our kids face because of the pressure of living up to standards and trying to be perfect on social media, in school, with parent expectations, with peers be these physical, mental, academic, systemic or any combination of the many ways youth are put under stress to be perfect, not to mention adults go through similar feelings. We both thought it was a great beginning topic for the podcast remembering, what we did doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to matter After Dark.

And hot off a call, Andrew Coburn sent me this photo of a BPLiving moment. One hundred of our Met students were off on a hike in the Blue Hills area near Canton, CT.

Be well!