Elliot Washor's TGIF 11.07.2025

 Are you with me now? A. J. Ryder

“Take it LITE”

 At yesterday’s BPL board meeting Carlos introduced Leadership Journeys Lite (LJL) and I loved it. Both Brenda Diaz and Jeff Palladino principals at Nashville Big Picture and Fannie Lou Hamer respectively were highlighted. Given the rules set up for Leadership Journeys I won’t talk about the content of their talk but I’ll say that both Brenda and Jeff have built communities of trust that show how students matter as they do work that is meaningful to them. Their stories showed how the actions of students and alums changed their communities.

It goes without saying LJL was a great way to show the board the importance of principal leadership and the staying power of BPL schools over time. LJL ‘live’ on Zoom changed my mind about how stories told on this platform can actually move an audience online. LJL is a great innovation of the first order.

Every time I go to our BPL board meetings, I’m really proud of how we have made such a successful succession without losing our soul and keeping it beyond the transition years. Last night, I was at dinner with a former head of State Farm, His recounting of his transition was quite different and way more the norm. He told me that not one person at State Farm has ever reached out to him for advice and we both agreed how nuts that is.

“Success is succession”

Just last week after reading last week’s TGIF, Robin Kramer the managing Director of the Smidt Foundation emailed me American Catalysis by Anna Gat about mentoring and musing. One of the many issues tackled in this long article speaks to transition/succession.

At the end of the day, what mentors, especially when much older than their mentees, work on is replacement. And not because mentees might break with them at some point, but because sometime in the future the mentors will die, and they will want to know they have left the world in good hands, that they have made a mark on it.

Very few educational organizations or schools have successful successions without losing their soul. There is a great deal to discuss here about how and why lots of our schools are still around. Could this be due to principal succession planning and finding your leadership soul? Here’s one more bit to tempt everyone to read Anna Gat’s article and after reading if you want to join our Wednesday group for a further discussion, just let me know you are interested.

“How all manual or mental expertise was meaningless if you strayed away from the Way, if you denied your soul.”

There’s a change in the weather

There’s a change in the sea

And pretty soon there’ll be a change in me.

Music and Lyrics by Billy Higgins and William Benton Overstreet

This Fall thanks to Daniel Oscar, I’ve been meeting with people that I have never met in 30 years. It seems our work just never quite aligned but now it does. I continued this series of meetings on Tuesday when I went to Washington, DC for the day. This time, Daniel arranged time with Steven Farr, Chief Learning Officer at Teach For All’s Global Institute which develops “collective leadership to ensure that all children can fulfill their potential” and Ross Wiener recently Vice President at the Aspen Institute and Executive Director of the Education & Society Program. Our discussion around Steven’s dining room table focused on how the work of BPL, specifically our real-world learning, leadership and International Big Picture Learning Credential initiatives can influence their work nationally and internationally. Through their connections to networks of schools and initiatives there were some great suggestions about how to move forward in California and globally.

Parallel Play 

At the same time I was in DC talking to Ross about making introductions for us to the Cal States system, Andrea texted me that she had just finished a meeting with Diego Arambula, Vice-president of the California State University Board of Trustees. Turns out we are moving toward the IBPLLC being accepted by about a half dozen California state colleges. All great news that approached a problem at multiple meetings at the same time. This feels like the old days of Big Picture and The Met where we were everywhere and everyone knew it.

Before I left for DC, I continued meetings with Learn 4 Life’s Craig Beswick vice president of Workforce Development and Education programs. First was a meeting with Anthonette around the IBPLC and internships and then a meeting with Melissa around internships and potential new BPL Schools. And once I got back home, I joined Andrea, Anthonette and Scott at the San Diego Foundation, an IBPLC workshop for extended learning organizations. They were greeted with open arms.

Next week, I’ll continue working in San Diego and then off to Phoenix, AZ to the CBExchange Conference. There I’ll be presenting the IBPLC and having some high-end meetings on competency-based systems.

Plenty, Plenty bye, bye! - Kenny Washington Sepia Voices