“Are you with me now?” AJ Ryder
Big Picture Living Day is Every Day!
First off, what a great day. This event was just amazing. Thanks to Dr.'s DD and MG, our students, Andrea and the FableVision crew and all the guest presenters. We need every entire community involved in this lifestyle change so we can all live healthy to do all we want to do in our lives. I can’t say enough about seeing this work move forward the way it did today. Thanks to our own BPL Community who continue to embrace this work and contribute to the greater good.
An email from Shiloh’s advisor to me this am when I asked if I can use Shiloh’s video in my TGIF
That makes my heart really happy. I asked him to do the work for the IBPLC because I truly wanted him to show why this type of education mattered, and he exceeded my expectations. It was fun seeing him graduate last night. I've known him since he was a bump in his mama's belly. This network is my hope for the flowers--every part of it just makes sense and it works. Sometimes like magic. I hope you have a beautiful day.
In gratitude,
Shannan
Here’s two videos of BPL students from geographically about as far away as students can get. They are both using the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC). Molly lives in Western Australia. Two weeks ago she was our keynote speaker at the Big Picture Australia Conference. Her video gives you even more perspective on who Molly is becoming. The other video is of Shiloh from the North Bay Met in California. Shiloh does lots of different things with metals from fabrication to racing vehicles he and his dad trick out. Here’s a few of the many things I love about these two videos as “exhibitions.” First off, it is their voice and no one else’s on the screen with them. Next, they are both connected to where they come from. And finally, the videos are short in length but even so, you get a great sense and feel for who Molly and Shiloh are. If you watch them one after the other you get to understand the variety of students we have out there who learn differently but can benefit tremendously by being at a BPL school. Yes, BPL design can be done all over the world and for all students. We have spread far and wide, now we have to scale and sustain our quality.. That is the job of the GB's.
Last night I met with a team from the Hewlett Foundation as a precursor for them going to the San Diego Met to see our student’s final exhibitions of the year. The purpose of our dinner meeting and the visit to the San Diego Met was to take back ways of making the Hewlett Foundation better around diversity, equity and justice through developing their version of exhibitions for adults in the foundation.
What I really liked about what they were doing was listening and learning from practitioners and students and then, making it their own. When does that happen?
Today I was at the San Diego Met’s graduation. As the President of the San Diego School Board stated “This school is small but mighty.” Anthonette Pena, our Director of B-Unbound was the speaker at this graduation. She was great. It is hard to believe that the San Diego Met is now 20 years old. I remember bringing Eric Oliveras, one of our students from The Met in Providence with me to address the San Diego School Board the day they made the decision to approve this new school. Times were very different then in the school start-up world. Small schools were all the rage and we knew how to do innovative ones. The Gates Foundation and Tom Vander Ark who was their Executive Director gave out lots of funding for us to start schools all over. The backing of the Gates Foundation was almost all the leverage we needed to get things moving. Over the course of 4 years, Gates came and went and to our credit, we didn’t follow their money when they changed direction but stayed true to our vision and mission. These early BPL schools are a testament to that work. I’m real glad to be part of all the years of hard work and for BPL to get acknowledged at graduation by the entire community. A very special thanks to Principal Robert Fung and his staff for keeping the flame on and the history told.
Be well!
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