From Compliance to Curiosity: How Inner Spark Learning Lab is Changing Education

Mark Taylor 00:00:30

Hello and welcome back to the Education on Far podcast. Great to be back with you. And today I'm delighted to be joined by Jacob Adams and he's an educational leader committed to transforming schools into places of joy, belonging and critical thinking for black and brown youth. He coined the term disconnection crisis to describe how traditional education separates young people from their purpose, community and creativity. Now, back in 2017, he founded STEM to the Future, now called Inner Spark Learning Lab, which has reached over 40,000 young people and generated insights shaping the broader education field. The Inner Spark Learning Lab are teaching students to design the world they want to live in. Ending the disconnection crisis by reconnecting youth with self, community and possibility. Now, just before we start, I just want to mention for those people watching on YouTube via video, apologies for the fact that I just updated my studio when I recorded this and there was a techn thing, the frame rate wasn't quite right, so the camera on my side looks a little bit off. I hope that doesn't disrupt too much, but I think it's such a great conversation. I wanted to make sure that you were still able to watch. This will make no difference to those of you just listening on the traditional audio platforms. Thanks so much. I really hope you enjoy this. My conversation with Jacob Adams and the innerspark Learning Lab. Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast. The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hi Jacob, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Fire podcast. Always great to chat to someone from the other side of the pond, but I think more importantly, what I love the most is the fact that the essence of what children need and how they learn and how they come to life with their education, I think is almost universal, no matter where they're from. So I think this is going to be a fantastic conversation. So yeah, thanks so much for being here.

Jacob Adams 00:02:30

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me, Mark. Excited to, excited to chat.

Mark Taylor 00:02:34

So I'm obviously here in the uk. Give us a little idea of where you are in the world and how that sort of fits into what you're creating.

Jacob Adams 00:02:42

Yeah, for sure. So right now I'm in Los Angeles, California, actually, I'm at a conference right now, but I'm also still in la. Like the conference is here, so I'm in town. But yeah, I'm in la, but Before I was here, I actually started. I'm from Augusta, Georgia. So in the southern part of the United States was a fourth grade. In fourth grade I was at this like, Magnus school, which is like to accelerate to school basically. And there I got this award for Honors Day, you know, like a honor roll, AB honor roll. And I remember the principal being like, we have AB honor roll with the exception of conduct. And then she was called my name and I was like, what in the world? So I went up there, got the award, was the only kid to get the award, like shook her hand and then they moved on to the next thing. And I think at the time I didn't. It was weird. It mainly was weird because no one else got it and I had never heard of it before. And then I was almost expecting it every other year, but they never even did it again. So I guess my teacher was just looking out. But I say that to say, like, Since I was 8, 9 years old, I've kind of had a kind of tense or I've kind of been critical of the education system despite going to a quote unquote good school. And I would do my work and then I would find ways to, to like disrupt and rebel. But then from there, fast forward a bit, I ended up going to New York where I taught first grade at this like high, quote unquote, high performing charter school in the United States. There's like this award that schools could get where if they're under a certain poverty level, but the test scores are a certain thing. They like a blue ribbon school. So it was one of those. But the school was ran like a prison, like kid teaching first grade. Kids didn't have recess. So I think I've taken my kids outside like three times in two years and had to get permission every single time. Kids had to sit with their hands together like this. Like if their hands are apart, you know, you're supposed to teach, you know, can't talk at breakfast again, no recess, which feels just like inhumane. But because the test scores are so high, like the school got all the awards, all the attention, and some days there would be like 50 people there just seeing what we were doing so they could take it back to their school. So that I left there, went to another school in Harlem doing professional development. They put on the tapes to teach us how to teach. The exact same place I just came from, same people, same class, same school. So I saw how that model was spreading. So ended up leaving, moved to LA to train teachers. And now I'm seeing A bunch of schools on any given day. And I was like, oh, just overall, school is boring. Like, even the good teachers, like, school is irrelevant. Kids aren't really learning anything that's aligned with who they are or, or what they're passionate about or connected to the community and all. Like the kids, most of the kids who are doing well, it's because they knew how to adapt to school and they knew how to adapt to the environment. But very rarely was the environment actually adapting to the kids and to the families. And so I wanted to make something that could flip that and actually make the school a place that adapts to the kids and families and stop trying to make the kids and families adapt to the school.

Mark Taylor 00:05:51

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And there are two things I want to try and remember to make sure that we cover based on what you've done there. One is, is obviously what you're doing in terms of inner spark learning and within the lab and all of that kind of thing. But probably more importantly after that, I want to know how that fits in the education ecosystem, because it's almost anti what you've just described, isn't it? And when there are people on one side saying, yes, but look at the results, look at what we're doing, look at the awards. It's really hard to sort of say, yeah, but look at the kids. You know, look at what they could do if they're learning in this way compared to that way. But they're like, yeah, but look at the awards, look at what we're able to do. Everyone's really happy with what we're doing. So I'm really keen on sort of your experience with that. But first of all, take us into, into sort of the inner spark learning and tell us sort of what that is and, and why you started that. Obviously based on the experience you've just spoken about.

Jacob Adams 00:06:39

For sure. Yeah. And then also so far, I don't. So I don't forget to that second point at the conference I was at, there was a woman from the school district that was speaking about how well the school district is doing last night. And so whenever we had that conversation, I love to fill that in because it feels super relevant. But yeah, inner spark to say our mission is to, like, turn schools into places that kids and families want to be. So, you know, I believe in the United States at least, chronic absenteeism is a big problem, such as kids not coming to school consistently reading. Like when it comes to test scores, like reading and math, like kids are like the test scores like, pre Covid levels. And, you know, if kids suffer with, like, mental health issues that, like, rates we've never seen before. And so. And all those are big problems. Like, don't get me wrong. And there's a lot of people working on kind of interventions within them. But my kind of belief and hypothesis about why some of why none of those interventions are working is because no one is really trying to change the environment in which those things are meant to take place. There's this author, Peter Gray. He, like, references this study that says out of all the places that kids spend substantial amount of time, like, they're the most dissatisfied with school. So it's like, well, kids don't want to be at school. Of course they're not gonna, like, at scale, they're not gonna read. Right. And do math. And, like, why would. Why should we expect them to do anything else? You know, we're having them come to this place that they don't, like, they don't enjoy. It doesn't feel relevant from 4 till 18. And we expect them to just. I mean, yeah, yeah. And they say that that's supposed to create, like, you know, intelligent, civically engaged individuals. But I feel like it, to me, it doesn't really make sense. So Inner spark. What we're doing is learning, like, what does it take to turn a school into a place that kids feel like they belong? Kids feel connected, and it feels relevant to kids. And the way that we have, like, found basically just learned the process of how to make that happen is through this basically feedback loop that we've created. It's called, like, a Listen, learn, adaptation. And so when I founded the organization, it was 2017, and then we were called, like, STEM to the Future. And so we were, like, teaching STEM, teaching STEAM, science, technology, engineering, art, math, but doing it in ways where kids were using it to address, like, unmet needs in the school, unmet needs in the community. Because I was like, what's the point of teaching these skills under the. With the priority of being like, workforce development, if a lot of the. If that means kids have to leave the community or that means the jobs that kids could get are ones that just kind of perpetuate the same harms that the community has to deal with on the daily. So, like, how could you actually learn how to use this stuff in ways that's beneficial to them? And then in 2020, we started this youth participatory action research program. We're, like, teaching kids. This is online. It's like, during COVID But we're teaching kids how to do research about them, like learn about themselves, learn about the neighborhood, learn about the community, and then use what they were learning to decide, like what issues or problem they want to or opportunities they want to address. And so that went really well. The all girls program at the time, they ended up building these robots that will like prototypes that attach to a robot that could deliver masking gloves to elders at this apartment complex for one of the guest speakers. And then the next year we did it in person and just like wrapped the story up. What we learned was like, in that program, like at a certain point we're pretty much making the curriculum like on a week to week basis. And it's all in response to like what the kids are learning in their research or what types of questions they're seeing. What are they, what's happening in their world, what's happening in their mind, what things do they want to do. And our ability to adjust and adapt that program, like when you look at the data from there and the data to the programs that we ran in the schools, like when it comes to belonging, connection, like engagement, like attendance, not night and day per se, but way higher in the, in the YPAR program. So we realized like the curriculum, the things we teach, like, it's important, but the main driver of getting kids to enjoy learning and enjoy the program was the fact that we were making it the thing that they wanted them to be. So we saw the impact that could have an after school program. And so now we're seeing, now we're learning, like what happens when you do that within a school? Because I believe if we could make a program a place kids actually want to be. Now let's see, you know, can that same framework work to help schools become a place kids and families want to be?

Mark Taylor 00:11:15

So one of the things that struck me on my recent Gare grouse season was the fact that he asked children, you know, why'd you come to school? And you said, there's something like 80 of kids say, because I have to. Like you say, that's an awful long time. From an early age all the way through to let's say 18 or whenever you're gonna leave school to just be there because you have to. And I think hopefully within that, even in whatever system you're in, you'll you find something that gets you, that gets you motivated and interested. For me, it was music, and it led to the joy of music in school and led into my career afterwards. I was very lucky about that. But I'd say Sometimes that's not the case. And people are just there. Right. For the sake of it, as it were. One of the things I'm interested from what you just said is even if you sort of grab the attention of children, you make it interesting, you make it purposeful, because that's what they're doing. They get a sense of community. They really get engaged with it. How do you then sort of straddle that thing between the things that they have to learn and the things that they need in order to help the project that they're on? And I don't mean have to learn because they've got to do an exam, because that's a whole different conversation as well that we may touch on as well. But in terms of, you know, if you're creating something which is related to a robot or you need to do something which produces something, there's a certain amount of. Of literacy or. Or numeracy or whatever the. The background of that is to do it. How does that sort of work within the program or the understanding of children saying, oh, yes, I need to learn this in order to be able to do that. If that kind of makes sense.

Jacob Adams 00:12:45

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So the way our program works is, like, embedded within the school, like, within the school day. And so some of it is, like, what would be a good example? Okay, I think there's like, two different, or probably several, but two different ways. I'm thinking of it. I think if we had someone come do a site visit a few months ago, and the kids were doing this, like, different engineering. They're doing less, like, engineering lesson. And then afterwards, she was like, oh, yeah, the kids are doing physics. She's like, your kids are doing physics and they're doing. I think it was just physics at that point. She said, yeah, they're doing physics, but, like, y' all don't call it that. And it makes me wonder, do we even need to call it that? She was like, the kids don't realize they're doing it, but, like, that's what's happening. And like. So they might not have the technical term or the. Yeah, they might have the technical term that. The technical terms that we use, but, like, they're still doing the thing. So there's some of it where it's like, I think our kids are doing these things that they have to learn, or they, like, need to know. We just haven't labeled them. Um, which I know that that could be a discussion, like, when should you? When shouldn't you? And then the other Things I think is like, then how can you leverage, especially here, man, like within a class, like the range of what kids know, you know, on one end of the spectrum, the kid. One kid could be a few grade levels ahead in reading, a math and another one could be three, four grade levels behind and like everything in between. So it's like, how can, especially with our, the amount of time we have with them, it's like, how can we leverage the other kids in the class to help bridge the gaps? So, you know, if it's like they need help with the math part of it, how can we, like, at that point we know who the kids are, how can we set it up where they could teach each other if it's a literacy thing, you know, while we're not going to be doing like explicit like phonics training or you know, explicit like phonics lessons with them, you know, are we, how are we setting them up to be able to make sure they that comprehend it? Are we reading it and then they're following along? Do we have other kids reading it? You know, how are we checking in with the students who may be below? Like, maybe you can't read the content to make sure they understand. So yeah, I think we have to be a little creative with it. But as much as we can trying to find the kids in the room that can do the skill or another thing and then have them take the lead for the other kids in the class.

Mark Taylor 00:15:06

Yeah, I love that. And I think sometimes we just have to remember that we're the adults in the room. Is that kind of. We can set the environment. We know the bigger picture. You know, you still have exams to pass or tests to do, or as a society you have to function in, in that way. But we don't have to make it look as it's supposed to, as it were, because we can set the scene. Like, like you said, you know, you might be able to do this whole thing as a project and never mention a particular term which might scare them off. But if they're learning it and they're embracing it, at some point you can drop that in and it's like, oh, okay, so I've literally just learned all of the physics I need, or I literally just learned all of the literacy I needed to be able to create this document that enabled me to put a project together or sell something or whatever it happens to be. And I think it's much easier to do it at that point because then it becomes relevant, whereas it doesn't so much before and I think as you said, it's the relevancy and the here and now and it making a difference to my world. But your world and then you'll learn whatever you want to learn. I think essentially.

Jacob Adams 00:16:04

Yeah, exactly. And because they're come, they like leave their teacher's class, come to our. Come to the lab, they'll do their, you know, we'll, we'll do our thing and then they'll go back. So then some of it is too is like for us because we're again embedded within the school. So we have good relationships with the staff, good relationships with the teachers. Like we know what they're doing. So then there's, we could just reference the things that are going on in their class. Like, hey, you know, as you're doing this like challenge, what did you notice? Like, oh, is that similar to what you were talking about, like Ms. Montgomery's class, like, how. How was it? How wasn't it? And then getting them to start to connect them dots so that when they are in class and they do do the things that could feel irrelevant and they can then think back to the, to what we were doing with them. Be like, okay, well in here, like the way I'm learning it in this class, like it feels abstract or I don't get why we're doing it. But because of what we did in lab, I see that it has a purpose. Like, I see how it could be helpful to me. Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:16:59

And I know agency is an important factor in terms of being able to show or demonstrate or the things that have actually been produced. I think that's such an important theme because when the end goal is just to be able to have a test, to go to the next grade or to go to university. University or to get a job, it's so way off, I think, to actually feel like I've produced this, I've made a difference. Come see it. Let me explain it. Let me show you it. Let me demonstrate it. Depending on what the project is and to realize that everything you're doing at every point of your life is making a difference, then like say the test scores, the things you have to do, they are still important, I guess, and children will still feel the pressure maybe of having to do that. But they've got these. However many things they've done up to that point to know that actually what I'm doing today is relevant. I'm not just waiting for something to happen or tick box further down the line.

Jacob Adams 00:17:46

Yeah, exactly. And then the where now I feel like the only measure of success is do I do well on this test? And where that just becomes a thing that you have to do, not only like the thing you have to do. So yeah, like along the way you could build your confidence and the test like I'm sure just like the pressure of it would still be there, but I feel that the, the it could be less pressure perhaps and also just like your relationship to equating your own value as an individual as how well I do on this test, I think we could really disrupt that by giving kids multiple opportunities. Really, we could just get rid of the test. But you know, in the meantime, if we could just give them all these different ways to see that like their identity isn't, isn't. Shouldn't be tied to or how they do on some arbitrary test. But again, they could find out how these different, you know, who they are, what they care about and then how could they use that to actually help the school, help the community become the place that they wanted to be?

Mark Taylor 00:18:45

Yeah, I love that. So take me into who it is that you're working with now, what your plans are. You know, you mentioned you're in la. How do you pick the schools? How do you pick the students? Is it specific sort of to that locality? And. And you're still doing some sort of online related stuff like you say, having sort of started that in Covid.

Jacob Adams 00:19:05

Yeah, for sure. So now we. But any given time we used to be in, I don't know, man, at one, at one time it could be like four or five schools at a time. And over the course of the year, like up to 30 or 40. But most of those it would be like one off, like one off workshops or we work like half the kids half the year and another half the kids other half of the year. So it's like really hard to develop like the relationships that we need I think to actually start to create that change within the school or in the program that we want or that we feel like is necessary for the learning to actually stick. And so now we're just like embedding everything into one school and phasing out all of the one off stuff or like the half the part time stuff. And so what that looks like is we start with this role called a dreamweaver. Her name, we have, her name is Kendra. So she's like really gets to know the kids, really gets into the families. And then she's using that to be able to inform basically everything we do within our other two programs and also using that to like create like different family event, being able to connect the families to different things that they. They have or they need, or finding folks within female families within the school that have things they want to offer and bring to the school. Like, how can we be that bridge? And then we have a weekly class that all the kids in this school come to. So the tk, like pre K, depending where you're at through second grade, they come and they're doing our curriculum, which is like, really about like a lot of problem solving, a lot of curiosity, but really around like self awareness. Like, how can we have kids start to at a young age, learn they are what they care about? How do you communicate that? How do you receive it from other people? And then how can you like, build your, you know, your curiosity, like your persistence, your critical thinking, like, start to create an environment where they feel safe doing that. And then third through fifth grade is now the youth participatory action research program. So it used to be just an after school program we did for like 30 kids, but now we're taking that and we're doing it for the entire third through fifth grade. And so like, the way that could look in practice is through the different interviews and like surveys and observations that the Dreamweaver has done. Kendra might. Kendra will hear that kids wish recess was longer. Like they. All the time. That's what they, that's what they say. It's like, okay, cool, we can't make recess longer, but we could see what happens when we give y' all more, when there's like more play, more freedom, more movement within school. And like, let's see what happens. And so we could take like the second graders for like two months that we could study. We're gonna like, find some different family members who have different like, expertise. There's some parents that might teach dance that might have like a some wellness or some athletics. Have them come in, set up different things for the kids to do. The kids can self select. And then we'll just incorporate more like freedom play movement into our curriculum and we'll like study it for two months. Like with that group of kids, what happened with their belonging? Like, do they feel more connected to the school? Did attendance change? Did like behave? Do we see a difference in like behavioral issues? So we'll study that. And then while that's happening, will the third through fifth grade students, they will start to then create different ways for the. They'll start to create different. Sorry. They'll start to create, use what they're learning to be able to develop things that incorporate more play and more movement into the school. So that way now we have the research from the second grade students so we get to see what happens when we incorporate more play and more movement. And then with the third through fifth graders, like they're creating their own things that bring more freedom, more play and more movement into the school. And then again we have the researchers we're working with who will show like what's happening as the, what's happening within the school as these like basically this feedback loop is happening. So yeah, we do that. So that'd be like a cycle of learning and then we'll share what we're learning like through each step with the principal, with the admin and then outside of school so we can have people start to see like the changes that take place as the school starts to adapt and evolve to the kids and the families.

Mark Taylor 00:23:14

I think I love that everybody being involved thing because like I say, when you've got proper communication with the parents and the families and you've got a school that's on board because they've brought you in to be able to do it and then you're researching it so you can actually sort of evidence base and sort of say, yeah, look, this is what we're seeing, this is what we're hearing and we've got all this to back it up. Then all of a sudden you're having serious conversations about we're showing you how great this is, we're showing you how to do it. It's based on the information that we have and we're giving you that, that facility that I guess if the schools knew about it in the way they could do it on their own. But actually because you're sort of set up to do that. And so what, what does that look like going forward? Is it kind of the school wanted something to happen or something to change, so they brought you in and then you sort of, they become self sufficient based on all the work you've done and then you move on to a different school. Or can the system then be from a school that maybe is further away and you can't go into, but you're still getting that philosophy and that understanding to sort of make that difference to those children further afield?

Jacob Adams 00:24:14

Yeah, for sure. So that the lab is going on and then also we work with, we have a partnership with this university out here, Loyola Miramount. So we work with them to train three different schools from like the admin all the way to all the educators on how train them over the next two Years as they implement these same, like, listen, Learn, adapt cycle. So that allows us to learn, like, how do you train a school to implement the system? And like, how do you coach the teachers? What relationships need to be true with the admin? Like, what mindsets need to be there? What does that process look like? So we learned that, and then within the lab, we learn how to actually do it ourselves. So then our goal is in the next, like, three years, we would then be able to take what we've learned. In the third year, we would have a second lab. So we'd have the elementary school and then we had the middle school so that we could see how, even internally, how do you share what you're learning across schools? But from three years from now, we could take what we've learned from our partnership with lmu, we could take what we've learned as we've been implementing the lab ourselves, and then use that to be able to have the research, to have the proof, to be like, okay, now we want to create a network of schools, a network of organizations who are implementing this Listen, Learn, Adapt cycle on their own and trying to make their schools or their organizations, places that adapt to the kids and families, and then basically just be like the kind of convener that supports the different schools or organizations, for now at least across the country, help set them, help them set the hypotheses, help them be able to analyze the data, come up with their learning cycles, have them go do it, and then bring them back so they could share within the group and then we could share what we're learning, you know, externally too. And we would want to keep our two labs because I feel like those just like, can remain the, like, demonstration sites and allows us to never. And I always feel some type of way when I feel like we have these, like, institutes or these places that are teaching folks how to do things that they don't even do it themselves. And so especially because as times change, like kids change, the environment change, technology changes, like, if you're not doing it, I'm going to question a little bit if you're the one, you know, you're supposed to be the one that can show everybody else how to do it. And so I really believe that, like, I want us to be able to do both. So then, you know, that also doesn't mean that we can just be. We have to be the ones who figured it out. We're working on it the same way all the other schools and organizations are in the network, are working on it. And so Our own approach gets refined as we're doing it, but it also gets refined through the other schools and organizations that would be in the network. So the goal is to build the model, codify the model now, make sure we understand it, and then start to at scale, start to train other folks over the country so that we can kind of create this network in like, school by school, organization by organization, start to change what people believe. You know, schools and youth development places can be.

Mark Taylor 00:27:05

Yeah, I mean, that's a really exciting prospect. And I think the thing, the thing that gets me really excited about this is the fact that it's very easy to sit back and go, look, the silver bullet would be this. The government's going to change their whole philosophy about it. We're going to rewrite what education looks like. I think we, we can safely say here and now that's not going to be happening in the next couple of months. In the meantime, all these kids are going through school and having to learn their journey. Thin air. So I think to be able to have these conversations and show a real impact and a real kind of insight into, we can make this happen in the here and now, within, within the current climate, within the current situation, within the current systems. And I think also that people really understand it's what people really want. They can see that children really want it. They can see the benefits of everyone coming together and doing it. And to be able to then show it in real time and demonstrate that with all of the things that you've mentioned so far, that's such an exciting possibility. And like I say, within time and the infrastructure, as you were saying, you can really see that happening. And hopefully both of those sort of ships happen at the same time. There's a little bit of support from outside, but also making that difference from the inside out.

Jacob Adams 00:28:17

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then, yeah, and I feel like the way we're setting, like the way the organization works, you know, through every phase of what we're doing, the goal is to be able to, to share. So, like, even so this year was the first year we like, started to bring everything into one school. And then next year will be the first year from like day one. All the programs are in the same school, running at the same time. So I'm really excited about that. But like, this year we had two different kind of like learning agendas, I guess. So. One was like, how do you build effective communication system with families at the schools? Especially being that, like, we're not the school, we're just a part of the school. And then the second was around these like self reflective check ins. So like how do you, how can we create, how can we help kids become like more self aware and more reflective of who they are and what they want and you know, what they care about. And so we basically which one I want to talk about first. So in the family communication cycle, what we ended up, so all of our facilitators like went and did like interviewed families, they talked to them after school, they. Well actually depending on the school, like for some of us facilitators like they sent surveys and then that wasn't working. So then they start to go to like the, the family nights that the school already has. And so then they found out for them that was the best way to build relationships and hear what types of ways the families wanted to be communicated. For another facilitator like the surveys worked, they got a lot of responses. And for another one, since she's there all the time, she would just during drop off she would just post up and talk to the families as kids were getting picked up. And so they each end up developing three different ways that worked for their three different schools on how to like best listen to the families. Then they use that to create their communications, what they heard from families. They use that to create three different like communication systems across three schools. Like one uses this virtual platform called Padlet. The one who was running what's the after school program at the time. Since a smaller group they just end up having these different, just more like traditional newsletter they would write. And then the third one, she ended up, she's actually doing something with teachers. And so for them she was learning how to make the environment a place that they want to be. So we'll set her to the side because it's not as relevant to this. And then they, for those two facilitators, they basically then implemented that family communication system for like eight weeks to see what they learned, what they were learning. So then alongside that we have these self reflective check in learning cycles where again we're trying to learn this process of getting kids to open up, be more self aware. And so through that we were coming up with these different prompts. So each facilitator was coming up with prompts they could share with kids to get them to open up. And so two of the prompts that really stood out when we asked the kids were what makes you feel like you. And what's something that makes you do and you feel like you're losing track of time. Time. And so and there's a bunch of, there's a series of prompts we use throughout the course of the learning cycle. But those were like two. At least that stood out. But one of the things I'll come back to stuff we learned there, but one of the things we learned through those learning cycles was a common theme across schools where kids wanted to spend more time with their families. Like they understood, like their families are working, they don't have a lot of time. But like they all said they wish they had more time with their families. And so then within the family communication system, we're like, okay, cool. One facilitator then has the kids start to write the newsletter to their individual parent to start to build that bridge. And then we, we start to create these kits that we could send home with the kids so they could start to do them with their families. And then given their families prompts that they could use to talk to their kids about the stuff they were doing and just start to learn more about them. So again, just even those two learning cycles, like we have them going on at the same time. And then as the learning was happening, we see how there's like points of connection. And so as like, okay, as we're doing these self reflective check ins, we're learning more about the kids and what they want. And actually that aligns with what we're communicating with the families. Like how can we bring those two things together? So say, I like to say, like as we keep growing and over the course of a year we do more of those and then as we have a network of school that are doing more of those, it's like, not only do you like the system that come out of the, that comes out of those, like it worked for that school we were in or the schools that were in, but that doesn't mean it's going to work anywhere. But if anything we learn like not only do we get the systems, but we learn like ways in which to even like what are different ways to listen to parents? Like what are different questions that you can ask them to get them to let you know how they want to be communicated with with the students. It's like not only do we have the prompts, but we learned that like the older they were, the, the more expressive they were. And across ages, like no matter if across ages, if you had them in small groups and they didn't have to write, but you actually set them up to discuss, they were way more express expressive. And if you give them ways to express their thinking outside of writing, Whether it's like drawing or. Or just like verbally or is it like through a song or so through some. Through some other creative outlet, like, for a lot of kids, like, they're able to express themselves more that way. And we learn just as the year goes on, they get more and more expressive. So a long way of saying, you know, we're learning a lot over the course of the year, but as we, I mean, keep doing it and they have more schools and more organizations who are running it, the learnings really start to compound. And then to the point you were making, like, we have a lot of evidence to show people, like, there's so many different things we could do right now, today, like, despite the climate that can help schools become a place that kids don't feel like they go to because they have to, but they go because, you know, somewhere they want to be, because they get to ask their questions, because they know people that care about them.

Mark Taylor 00:34:06

I love it. And I think the thing that strikes me the most is the fact that we know from here on in, it's not going to be so much about knowledge that it's going to be important. It's about how people communicate. It's about the critical thinking. It's about how people come together and share what they. What they know, but who they are and how they relate and how that moves forward. So I sort of love that. This is a perfect way of demonstrating that this isn't a system. You don't have to do it like this. It doesn't have to look like this. You can't just suddenly learn it. But it's a whole way of being that then is important because that's the s. That's the essence of what you're going to do next year. The year after five years, having left school, into your work life, into whatever that happens to look like, which is what the teachers and the schools are having to do now in order to make that work. And it's a little bit kind of, oh, I'm not quite sure how this fits with me because I'm used to it being quite, you know, two by four, as it were. It has to look like this. It has to work in a certain way. But once you embrace that and you realize everyone's thriving in that way, then you kind of, I think you relax into it, you take a breath into it, and you realize, actually now we're really set up because these foundations are really solid, because we can adapt and move and understand and wherever the world takes us. And we know that's changing fast. We've got what we need in order to be able to be flexible and adapt as we need to. And that really, I guess, is the essence of what we're trying to give kids, especially in this day and age.

Jacob Adams 00:35:28

Yeah, exactly. I think our job isn't to tell kids how to navigate the map of life, let alone tell them where they need to go and then show them how to get there. I feel like the quote unquote, like, best schools, that's what they do. I think our job should be just to show kids that even as adults, we're learning how to create the map ourselves. So, like, we're trying to figure out who we are and where we want to go and then what are the skills we need to get there. And so I feel like, yeah, we're teaching kids, like, what's the process of creating their own. Like, how do you know who you are so that you can decide where you want to go? And then what are the. How do you. What's the process of navigating there? And, you know, halfway along the journey, you might realize you probably will. Actually, we don't. I don't want to go there. I'd rather go over here instead, and that's cool. And over there, like, there's gonna be a hurdle. How do you get over it? What do you do? Do you decide you don't want to get over it, or do you decide you want to have to figure it out and go over, go under, go around, whatever? So, yeah, you know, it's. It's not so, like, linear. It's actually just trying to teach kids and even ourselves as adults, like the. How do you. Yeah, like, what are the skills you need to decide where you want to go and then feel confident that on your. On your way, you're going to be able to. To navigate it.

Mark Taylor 00:36:45

Yeah. And I think just to sort of complete that circle. What you've done in. In the way that you've explained it and, and how it works is the first fact you've demonstrated that with everything that you've done with the children. So it's not. It's not that it's like, oh, I now need. I've got something else I need to be aware of. You've done it however you want to label it, however you want to describe it in terms of what your future will look like. You've experienced it in the here and now as part of what we've been doing. It's just the same thing. And like, I say it's very easy to think we have to discuss these things in a certain way. We have to be able to express ourselves in a certain way because it's the, the formal way of learning or the formal way of, you know, talking to the university, the employer or the whatever. But actually just that sense of I've been there, done it, I can show you what I did, I can explain what I did and why it worked for me. And then it becomes human to human. And I think that's what's going to separate everybody out to. People want to gravitate to what you're about. And I think that's such a positive thing to be able to do.

Jacob Adams 00:37:40

Sure, yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:38:22

Now, obviously the acronym FIRE is really important to us here at Education on Fire. And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment. And you mentioned feedback earlier on. Is it a really important thing? What is it that strikes you and, and how do you want to dive into that?

Jacob Adams 00:38:38

Yeah, I think, oh, feedback is just so important because it creates a constant cycle. It does should create like a constant cycle of like, adaptation. And so I feel like, you know, the feedback, Feedback in and of itself is important, but more importantly, it's like whose feedback holds the most value. And I feel like within education at least, yeah, formal education, like the feedback that has the highest currency is of that currently is of that of people who don't go to school every day. It's the policy people, it's the school board members, it's the, the, the, the textbook folks, all these people who have some vested interest in the education system other than the actual holistic development of the kids that go there. And so, you know, what I, what I believe is like, we need to change the feedback loop so that it's informed by the people who are in the school every single day, like starting with the kids. So, you know, as a teacher, how can you make, you know how, what can you do within your current context to make sure that you're adapting your practice, you're adapting your curriculum, you're adapting your systems to be a place that actually works for your kids and for your families? You know, as an administrator, what are you doing to create the environment where you have the feedback loops in place so you can learn from your staff to make sure that you're giving them what they need to be able to adapt in real time? So then now it's not this one teacher down the hall who's adapting. The whole school can start to create this environment where the feedback they value the most is that of the kids and the families in terms of how they do. They feel like they belong here. Are they, you know, not only are they coming to school, but why are they coming to school? Like, underlying it, like, that's the, that's the most important part, the most important part to that question is not are they coming? But why are they or why aren't they? So, yeah, and I feel like once you start to create a feedback loop that operates from the inside out, like that elite that creates an environment where everyone in there feels more inspired because people are working on things that feel relevant to them. They. They see the purpose. They. They care about the. They care about what's happening in the building because it affects them there every day. And in terms of the resilience, like, someone asked me the other day, like, how do. What advice would I have around, like, being persistent and like, if you know who you are, it's easier to be persistent and like, kind of deal with the punches or be able to deal with adversity because you're doing. You're trying to get to a place you want to go. It's a lot harder to deal with adversity when you're just doing it because it's someone else's idea of what success is. But when it's what you want to do, it's way easier to navigate through the difficult times. So I think you create a more resilient school, a more resilient community, because again, as a collective, we're doing the things that we need. And the empowerment, like, again, like, now you're showing that the solutions, the solutions, the creation of the place that the school could be, the community could be, like, that's coming from the kids, it's coming from the families, coming from the teachers in the school. And so now folks know that they don't need to wait from people from the outside to tell them who they are, what they should be. Like, they can create that themselves. And it might not work. You know, it might not be what they wanted it to be because of all the different things that exist. But even the developing the understanding of what issues and what barriers get in the way creates a sense of empowerment. Because now, you know, like, okay, some of us are going to work on changing that thing, and the rest of us who have a different path, like, going to change that policy, that's where we're putting our energy and others of us are going to work on these other things. But again, that feedback creates a whole loop that leads itself where basically just do the Thing from the inspiration, the resilience and the power environment.

Mark Taylor 00:42:19

Like I was just saying, I think that's so brilliantly put and I think it's so easy, especially with an education to, to be talking about. We wish it was like this. We wish it was like that. It could be like this. I'm doing it for this reason or that reason. I got into education for this reason and that reason. And the thing that I love the most about what you just described, I think so brilliantly within the acronym there is the fact that you've demonstrated and explained today how it works, why it works, and the fact that people are doing, doing it. And I think that's the, that's the thing. It's not just about the conversation, it's the action that goes with it and actually being able to say, look, here's a way of doing it, here's a conversation to have, here's the next step. And you can see why that is all based, like you say, on conversations in research. So, Jacob, thank you so much. It's been brilliant to chat to you about it. People who are inspired to want to know more, get involved in whatever way that looks like. Where would you like them to go? What would you like them to take a look at?

Jacob Adams 00:43:11

For sure@intersparklab.org podcast through that will like get you. That's a good way to connect. Like whether it be the different things we're learning, the different like conferences or workshops that we host, we share those there. And then also too, like that's where I'm kind of sharing like what I'm seeing and what I'm learning on this journey of like trying to create an organization that is help schools become places kids and families want to be. Because again, like that's not easy from trying to get the funding from it to the different policy things that we have to deal with faith. And then also sometimes great stories come out of it. So it's a good way for folks to just see the journey and also be able to share with us, like, what are they learning? Because I know other people are doing it too. So we want to be able to learn as well and be able to highlight and build those connections. And then also if you're on LinkedIn, I share a lot on, on there as well. It's like Jacob Adams, you'll see me, the ball headed dude got a beard with glasses.

Mark Taylor 00:44:08

Yeah. And we'll have links to all that stuff in the show notes as well. So yeah. Jacob, Jacob, thank you. Keep inspiring. Keep up the Great work. Yeah. Can't wait to follow and see how it progresses in the future.

Jacob Adams 00:44:18

For sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Mark Taylor 00:44:20

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.