2026-01-17 50th Birthday Party Plan

Jacob's 50th Birthday Party is not only a party, but a reflection of Jacob's life, and his continual striving to get more effect for the effort , with what Jim Collins calls "the genius of the AND". Specifically, Jacob's first half century of consciousness has had one continual theme: Rethinking Education. And, so here is the evolving plan about the logistics of the party, to have it be both enjoyable AND support Jacob's lifelong work:

Pacific Time (PST)	GMT / UTC (24hr)	Segment	In-Person Activities	Online Activities	Media
10AM–12PM		Setup	Move current chairs to the walls		🎶 Jacob's 50th Setup for Greatness 🙌
12:00–12:30 PM	19:00–20:20		Get Manning Hall Tables/Chairs	Tech Setup
12:30–1:00 PM	20:30–21:00	Early Arrivals / Helpers	Greeters share program & info	Discord help & Info by Greeter	🎶 Jacob's 50th Years Passing Playlist 🥂
1:00–1:15 PM	21:00–21:15	Arrival & Settling In	Potluck setup, go to table
1:15–1:30 PM	21:15–21:30	Jacob Welcome's Everyone	Focus on the stage from table	Go to "stage"	Slide show?
1:30–1:45 PM	21:30–21:45	First Guided Conversation: Starter to ReThink Education	Get food & table introductions	Go to "table", intro & convo	🎶 Jacob's 50th ReThink 🤯
1:45–2:30 PM	21:45–22:30		Guided conversation & eating
2:30–2:45 PM	22:30–22:45	Cake + Intro to "Yes And"	Focus on the stage from table	Go to "stage"	📽️ Karen Tilstra's Yes And TEDx
2:45–3:45 PM	22:45–23:45	Second Guided Conversation: "Yes And" Improv(e)	Guided conversation & eating cake	Back to "table"	🎶 Jacob's 50th Yes And 🙂‍↕️🙵
3:45–4:00 PM	23:45–00:00	Appreciation and Action	Jacob is on stage with closing	Go to "stage"	🎶 Jacob's 50th Go Out and Do It! 🦸‍♂️
4:00–4:30 PM		After-event mingling	People can mingle as desired	Mingle as desired
4:30–5:00 PM		Cleanup	Reverse Setup Process	Get Recordings

Setup

Room Setup

Team

• Jerry Walker - Team Lead
• Jacob Walker
• Kristen Zoabi
• Taha Zoabi
• Riley Walker

Tech Setup

Team

• David Jones - Team Lead, Online Coordination
• Jacob Aronson - Online Support
• Dave Langley - Videography
• Jesse Sanchez - Sound Board

Arrival & Settling In

Greeting People Arriving

Team

• Ava Reich - In-Person
• Stephanie Langley - In-Person
• Jacob Aronson - Online
• Abram Doe - Online

Jacob Welcome's Everyone

with the following being a quick summary of the journey, as written by him:

• Before I entered Kindergarten, I was almost "held back" in preschool, and so was considered a "slow learner".
• But, after being pulled from formal school at the age of 9, to take a trip around the United States for 3 months, where my dad made sure we stopped at every historical museum AND every NASA space center, I then became known as the "smart kid" in school, because I was now fascinated with learning about our history and our future.
• Then around the age of 11, my parents told me not to touch their Atari ST computer... And my self-taught journey of reaching expertise in technology began.
• And this led my teenage years to have a bifurcation of having my high school experience at Del Oro being valuable, especially Mr. Lasley inspiring me to think deductively, and Mr. Kurnett inspiring me to think scientifically, and a key experiment blew my mind and made me recognize our human epistemic fallibility.
• At the same time, I was starting to meet other computer nerds via electronic BBS systems (a proto Internet), which led to meeting the friends I made online with MUPTs (Modem User Pizza Thingies), and that along with my playing AD&D, led to Techno Gnomes being formed as a group of friends still connected today, in some way.
• And these friends, and the birth of the Internet as a more public thing, led us Sierra College students, to start the first Internet provider in Placer County: Psyberware. This lit the flame of entrepreneurship in my heart, that will not stop burning, even today when it would be easier to take an easier path.
• But change is inevitable (except from a vending machine :-), and as the journey of Psyberware was winding down because modems couldn't go faster, and broadband was controlled by an oligopoly, I changed careers more directly to being an educator: teaching at Grant Adult Education, and working towards a Bachelor's degree in Vocational Education. It thrust me into a new paradigm of education, with teaching self-paced mastery-learning courses, where I would literally have adult students who were millionaires sitting next to someone who was homeless, and they interacted as equal students, not knowing the others background. It was through this background that caused me to question standard education, that I had the opportunity to write several of California's educational standards for Career Technical Education.
• From here, I had the fortune of crises every few years, that I did not let go to waste. This started with Grant merging with other districts to become Twin Rivers, right about the time the Great Recession hit, causing adult schools around California to lose their state funding. Thankfully, our new adult school leader boldly decided that we would transform our school from standard adult education to a vocational school that would use Federal Pell Grant funding in place of the state funding we lost. This was a huge undertaking, that I had the privilege of being tasked with doing most of the details! And so while on paper I was a "teacher on special assignment", to the Federal government, I was the Chief Financial Aid Officer, in charge of coordinating millions of dollars of funding. It also led to me advising California's primary accrediting body on how they should change their accreditation protocol for postsecondary education.
• Yet as we were working to build the airplane of earning money via Pell Grants, we also had our resources pulled away quicker than we could sustain our flight. And it was then that we learned about how we could form an adult charter school to get a different type of state funding, to continue to serve the unserved adult population who don't fit neatly as high school students nor in college. This led me to again take on the details, this time co-founding Highlands Community Charter School. It also led me to understand politics more, and unfortunately directly understand the politics of public corruption. And corrupt the school became, as Channel 10 documented well in their investigative reporting "The Wild West of Education". So I could not ethically stay on with what I helped birth, and left.
• This was really my first time in the "wilderness". I had no other job lined up, and my first attempts at starting a consulting business failed, because my focus failed. But as I was about to not make my house payment, I had the fortune of being hired with Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), in the Superintendent's office, to do data analysis to work to change the district. This was the first time I experienced the full force of B.S. (bureaucratic systems :-). I did not thrive, I did not feel I made a difference, and ultimately the entrenched system of vested interests, and systemic inertia forced our superintendent out, and about the same time I had the opportunity to become a Lead Software Engineer with Renaissance learning. This also taught me I cannot work for a big corporation and do a good job. Beyond the B.S. (Bureaucratic systems), which were at least less than SCUSD, my passion was no longer to try to optimize profit, which despite being a progressive organization, was still the bottom line of Renaissance. And due to my extreme honesty on some things to my new "boss", I was laid off.
• And yet all those events led me to now... (More to be written here)

First Guided Conversation: Starter to ReThink Education

Conversation Coordinators

Formerly known as Table Leads

• Demeaned to Dignified: In-Person: TBD, Online: Ash Rahman
• Digitools for Developing Economies: In-Person: Jerry Yamashita?, Online: Gibran R. Nameer
• Family Enterprise Education: In-Person: Aimee Walker?, Online: TBD
• Master Educator: In-Person: Alice Jacobs?, Online: Doreen Myrie?
• Actually Useful AI
  • In-Person:
  • Online:
• Competency Cubes
  • In-Person: ?
  • Online: Olga Evans
• GPTeachers
  • In-Person: Corbin Crutchley
  • Online: Jessica Temporal?
• Mentorship
  • In-Person: Tami Kaceveros?
  • Online: (media person my aphasia is hitting me on)
• Pay It Forward
  • In-Person: Dave Werkely?
  • Online: Derrick

Table Conversation Starter to ReThink Education

Table Leads ask one at time (don't do all questions at once, we want to go around quickly)

1. Who are you? and...
2. What is one thing you want us to know about you?
3. How do you know Jacob?
4. What is the most valuable thing you learned in school?
5. What was the most useless thing you learned in school?
6. What is the most valuable thing you learned outside of school?
7. If there was one thing you could have everyone in the world learn, what would it be?

"Yes And" Improv(e) Table Conversation

1. Lead Asks the table: "When you hear the term ___ what is the image you get in your head?"
2. Lead gives everyone an actual description of the concept, and reads it aloud
3. Lead asks for someone to play devil's advocate and share a hurdle that would make it not work.
4. Then the table goes around with a solution brainstorm in a "yes, and..." manner.

Team

Cleanup Team

• Jerry Walker - Team Lead
• Jacob Walker
• Kristen Walker
• Taha Walker
• Riley Walker
• Dwayne Partridge?
• Others who volunteer