Elliot Washor's TGIF 11.21.2025
- Lauren Fe
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Are you with me now? A. J. Ryde
Whenever James Gleick reviews books in the NY Review of Books it gets my attention. This time, The Parrot in the Machine - The artificial intelligence industry depends on plagiarism, mimicry, and exploited labor, not intelligence reviewed two books:
by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
by James Boyle
James Gleick is both scientist and historian and in this book review, he talked about the origin of AI. The story starts in the 1950’s when Claude Shannnon, a mathematician at Bell Labs made up a game to see if his wife could guess the next letter of a word in a short paragraph. Sure enough, her guess was correct 69% of the time and that is what AI does. They are nothing more than prediction machines, presented as benevolent helpmates. There’s loads of insights in his review for educators about our use of AI with students. Later on in the week, I was talking with Eliot Levine about BPL’s research agenda and when I off the cuff mentioned Claude Shannon, he told me that he had something in common with him in that they are both jugglers. I’ve seen this fascination with juggling, magic and music come up many times with scientists and mathematicians. What’s that all about?
National Equity Project
Last Friday evening I attended an event in Oakland for the 30th Anniversary of the National Equity Project – NEP. I was there at the early days of this group when it was part of the Coalition of Essential Schools. At that time they were called the Bay Area Coalition of Essential Schools - BACES. Not long after the name was changed to the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools and then, the National Equity Project. It was great to see so many old and newer friends who have been part of this work, some literally for generations, given that their children got involved. I’m really glad that Carlos suggested I take the trip up from San Diego.
Here I am with Warren Simmons who served on their advisory board.
On Sunday it was off to Winnipeg to work with both the Winnipeg and Seven Oaks School Divisions. For my time with the Winnipeg School Division I was joined by Taylor. We worked with eight schools in various phases of developing as Big Picture Schools. From advisories to real-world learning to student assessment and of course building culture these schools are tackling the difficult issues of transition. My other meetings at Seven Oaks were very different. These three schools are fifteen years into their practice and are constantly challenging themselves to get better and better. A fourth BPL school in the planning stages will open next year for indigenous students. I had an afternoon with Amber Brown who was an advisor at Maples Met and will be the principal.
“My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” William James
Whenever I work with the Seven Oaks BPL schools, We are always exchanging practices. This time it was about how to get students' interests out in the open. Yes, those interests are there but many times if you ask about someone’s interests too directly rather than listen and observe you don’t get a good response. One trick of the trade David Z pointed out was to take a student on a walk around the city and listen to what they tell you they see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
David referenced the book On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz as a reference point to his practice. Here the author took a walk around her city block eleven different times with eleven experts and listened to them talk about what they sensed. Of course, what they pointed out was personal and revelatory. They all saw very different things. It is exchanges like these that move advisors to try out different approaches to allow student interests to emerge. These methods then become an advisor’s tricks of the trade. That’s the beauty of gathering with people who have been at it for the long haul.
A little later David and I were on a walk and we noticed this sign at the same time. Kismet!
On Wednesday night Taylor and I were invited to the Manitoba Indigenous Youth Achievement Awards - MIYA. This event was a very large venue and I’m so glad we were there to listen to the stories of the students and elders. Some of the students who won awards were from the BPL school – Children of the Earth. This was one heart-warming event and a highlight of the trip.
On Thursday, I had dinner with Brian O’Leary the former superintendent of Seven Oaks and Commissioner of Education for the Province of Manitoba. Brian invited us to work in the district around 15 years ago and the rest is history. At dinner we continued to brainstorm ways to work together to get BPL a higher profile in Canada.
One more thing …
Last week, James Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company lamented that they have not been able to fill some 5,000 openings for mechanics despite offering $120,000 a year. He warned that there is a dire shortage of skilled trades people exclaiming “We are in trouble in our country. We are not talking about this enough.” I don’t agree. We are talking about this shortage all the time, we are just not talking about it in ways that will attract people to the trades. This week, I was in a vocational school in Winnipeg and spoke with students and teachers and they told me it is really as much about the money as people believe. It is about the culture of a place and how a company treats you as a person that matters a great deal. If we keep looking at the wrong measures, we will end up in the same place with the same predicaments we are in.
Plenty, plenty, bye, bye
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