[00:00:05] Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to School: After Hours podcast where we talk about the real work behind successful out of school time programs, education, leadership and youth development. I'm your host, J. Lee. And today I'm going to be sitting down with Jacob Adams, the founder of InnerSpark Learning Lab, a South Central Los Angeles based organization on a mission to make schools places that kids actually want to be.
[00:00:30] For nine years, Jacob and his team have been building a framework rooted in a simple but radical idea. Listen to the people in the program, the students, the families, the teachers, and not the noise around you. Through their listen, learn and adapt model, they've reshaped curriculum, transformed how teachers communicate with families and proved that when you design education around what kids say they need, the outcomes take care of themselves.
[00:01:00] In this episode, Jacob shares the hard wins and the lessons learned behind building a learning organization, the discipline of staying accountable to the community, and what happens when you give young people the platform and the skills to reshape their own school. Well, with all those gems that's ready to be revealed to us, let's go ahead and get started. So Jacob, welcome to the show.
[00:01:30] What's up? Thank you. Thank you. One and only, I like that. There probably are some other Jacob Adams out there, but I like to say they GMO Jacob Adams. This is the organic. That's what it is, right? Jacob, thank you for being here and having this conversation with us. I did want to dive in. For the people that don't know what the InnerSpark Learning Lab is, can you tell them a little bit about it, but also a little bit about yourself so they can get familiar? Oh, for sure.
[00:02:22] For sure. There's a lot of different people working on interventions to address them. But I feel like all of that stuff is happening on, if you think of it as a house, like it's all happening on a bad foundation. So none of those interventions really will work at scale because the environment in which they take place is one kids and families and teachers don't want to be in. Most of them don't want to be in.
[00:02:47] So I feel like what we're doing is trying to get people to, one, realize that more funding, investment, incentivization needs to go into changing the school environment to be a place that adapts to the kids and families. And then we're trying to get people to see that while we're doing it ourselves and showing actually what happens when you make school a place that adapts to kids and families instead of trying to make kids and families adapt to the school.
[00:03:16] I know that's right. So when you were building Inner Spark Learning Labs, like what were some of the components that you felt were important to include in your framework and in that process? Yeah, I think the first thing that we saw really just through learning was when you incorporate student voice in a way where it's a consistent thread throughout the program. You're really just setting yourself up to design something that the kids want to be in and are excited to come to.
[00:03:43] As soon as we realized that, we really started developing all of our systems around that. So like really trying to make sure that we have a clear system for how to listen to kids and families and then the educators we train and then a clear systems of like, okay, now not only do we listen to folks, but we start to then build things and design things with their input and having spaces where they can build and design things based off what they want to see.
[00:04:10] So I think that really the main thing is having clear systems and like structures around listening and just making that like kind of the key component of the work. And then from there, making sure we actually do something with what we hear, not because, you know, it's what I actually probably prefer people don't listen instead of folks pretend that they listen and then do whatever they want to do anyway. So, but first, first things first listen. And then after that, actually use listening. Right.
[00:04:39] So there's staging that happens. It doesn't just start with a conversation and then next thing you know, we're off to the races. Right. So go ahead and walk us through the stages of how you get from the idea to now the execution. Yeah, that's a good question. It depends. But the system we use, we call it like listen, learn, adapt.
[00:04:59] And so the first thing we do, which could be like, oh, we're going to basically have a conversation with every kid in the school or we'll be like, okay, this thing that we're about to develop is just focused on upper elementary. So we could just have like listening sessions with all the third through fifth grade. And that could be like a survey maybe.
[00:05:18] But a lot of it is actually sitting down with kids and whether it be like small focus groups and one-on-one conversations to then be able to record those and be able to kind of get the data and then see what are the trends that are coming up through the conversations. And then from there, again, kind of depends on the grade or the age of the kids. Then even just kind of presenting back the data to the kids and be like, hey, we talked to everyone in fifth grade. Here are the trends we saw. Like what do y'all notice?
[00:05:47] Like what stands out to y'all? You know, the data says that this thing, more play was the thing that came up the most. You know, they said that in the things. But it's like, do y'all actually agree with that? Does that feel right? And like bringing them into that process. And if the kids are like, yeah, that's right. That's like, okay. Again, depending on the program, it's like, well, what do y'all want to do? What do y'all want to do to incorporate like more play, more freedom, more movement into the day?
[00:06:15] And so then the kids kind of have some ideas. And then again, depending how it is, maybe we might design the thing to implement, staying on this example to implement more play and more movement. Or we'll do something and the kids will do something. But every step along the way, there's like a conversation of here's what we saw. Here's what we learned. Here's what we're going to do. And it's an actual conversation. It's not us just telling the kids, hey, here's the thing that's about to happen. So it's like the learn part is us doing the experiment.
[00:06:43] And then the adapt is like, okay, to incorporate more play and more movement, we like brought in different parents and community members that could like bring their, you know, maybe they dance or maybe they're a coach or maybe they do some wellness stuff. Like we brought them in during the day and the kids got to like self-select into the groups. So, hey, we did that. And then we had more conversations with y'all. And here's what the data said. So what worked? What didn't work? What should we change? And then we'll adapt the next version of the solution based off of that. And then we'll share across the school.
[00:07:13] And then we'll share it through different places like what happened through that experiment. So that's like the structure, how it gets implemented could change. But the parts are the same, like the listen, the learn, the adapt, and the share. Right, right. I do have a follow-up question for that. So in pulling in the community, right, because you said you talk to parents, you may go out and talk to business owners. You may talk to other partners within the community to get them interested into participating in this process.
[00:07:41] Like what do those conversations look and sound like to get them to buy into enriching the school culture and the environment for the kids? Yeah. A lot of folks are just like they care about the kids, invested in the community. So that makes it like an easy pitch more or less.
[00:08:00] But then it's also like as we get to know them, we find ways that they can actually bring themselves, their expertise, their interests to the collaboration. And so it becomes something that they're – and, you know, maybe it's aligned with something they're trying to figure out. So then the partnership is not just us asking them to come do whatever we want them to do, but it's actually something aligned with who they are and what they care about and what they're trying to achieve.
[00:08:26] So anytime I think of a partnership, I'm like how can we create value for everybody involved and then kind of communicate that to the different stakeholders, different people in the community. Because, you know, at the end of the day, if everyone can – not that it needs to be transactional, but like if you're going to get people's time, you want to get their investment, like they need to feel like they're getting something from it. So I think what we try to really do in building those partnerships is understand what it is people in the community like have or want to get. And maybe what they want to get is just giving back.
[00:08:56] Like, you know, it's not always like a – like that could be the exchange. But whatever it is, we feel like we need to understand that and then we'll develop the partnership from there. Nice. So before we get into the next thing, we are going to go ahead and take a break at this moment, y'all. So do not go too far. Go ahead. Get your tea. Get your water. Do a stretch. Do whatever you got to do. But don't go too far because we're coming right back. See you in a minute. Are you a program director or thinking of starting a program?
[00:09:21] Maybe you need new curriculum that focuses on character development or technical skills. Maybe you need help establishing effective program logistics to have an impactful program culture. Or overall, you just need a program evaluation. Well, School After Hours Consulting is here to help. Contact us at schoolafterhours.com and our contact information is in the show notes. Hope to hear from you soon.
[00:09:51] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. So we're picking up our conversation, talking with Jacob about the In a Spark Learning Lab and all the wonderful work that they're doing surrounding youth voice and how it's impacting not just school culture, but also community partnership as well. So Jacob, when we left off in the conversation, you were walking us through the framework of the InnerSpark Learning Lab. One of the things that I have to ask is, being that you've had your program for nine years and still growing.
[00:10:18] Like, I know it didn't start off with this perfect framework that you have now. So what are some of the things or what are some of the challenges that you had to overcome in the process of getting what you have at this point? Yeah. So much just like, basically learning what we want to be accountable to, especially in terms of like metrics. I feel like it could be real, especially when you're doing work that can be tied to funding,
[00:10:44] it can be real easy to design your programs and your outcomes around things that funders want or say they want, which is oftentimes disconnected from whatever the people in the program want. And so I think if you are changing, it's just based off of what external people say. So what we, I think, had to learn how to do was like to learn how to, or make sure that
[00:11:12] our changes are actually based off of the kids, the families, the teachers that we train in, like the people we working with, we need to be changing based off what they say they want, not what these other people say they want just because they got money. So I'd say that takes a level of recognition at some point and then discipline. And knowing that that can have limits on, you know, at least short-term like growth, I guess.
[00:11:38] So then having to build the organization in a way that doesn't put us in a situation where we just need to start doing things, you know, the budget is so high. Now we got to start doing whatever funders want because it's so super expensive over here. So I think that it takes a level of kind of like discipline for sure. And then I think just getting comfortable with like change, because if you are truly the learning organization, especially if you're working with people in this society, like things are
[00:12:08] constantly changing. So you have to like have systems in place that allow you to change without becoming unstable. And which can be hard to do with a team full of people, like folks want consistency. So it's like, all right, how you build systems around continuity and consistency around change. Things are always going to be changing, but that doesn't mean we got to be running around like the buildings on fire, but we need to have systems in place that allow us to change
[00:12:37] and allow us to adapt because the world that the kids are living in is changing and adapting. So we got to be able to do it too. So I think those are two things on the more kind of like infrastructure level that have been key to then making anything else that goes on in the schools possible. I know that's right. And being such a youth focused, especially a youth voice focused program, what are some of the adjustments that the adults and the school environments that you've seen in the
[00:13:07] culture have had to adapt to and change in order to get the project done? Yeah. Some of it is just like the adult's mindset. Well, really, that's where it starts. It's just around like the adults actually believing that they need to create an environment that the kids enjoy for these other things to work. And that doesn't mean that it's just like play all day, play all the time. Maybe in some places it could mean that, but like at the end of the day, I think a lot
[00:13:35] of the adults, most of the time because of external stuff, they feel like they got to drill whatever standards are going to be on the reading test. They got to drill whatever standards are going to be on the math test. Then after school, I think it's way more freedom, but either way, you still feel like you kind of control. So you might got to do whatever the funder said needs to happen for that grant that's like running that specific program after school. So it can be these other things that feel like they're telling you what to do.
[00:14:02] And so it can be easy to believe like that's what you need to prioritize or like that's the most important thing. But I think a lot of it is just getting them to see like if you even want that to happen, the first thing you got to do is to get the vibes right in here and make sure it's a place that kids want to be. So that's a huge thing. And then I think an example of what that could look like, we, this is our own stuff, like our curriculum, we were talking, we're always talking to kids, but like three years ago,
[00:14:30] we were talking with them about the curriculum and we had like a lot of computer stuff in there. And they were like telling us like they're on a computer all the time in school. So they were like, we really don't want to be on the computer. We want to do other stuff. So pretty much, unless it was like the engineering program, we like took the computer out of the curriculum. And now three years later, there's a research coming out that's showing this basically the first generation that's had a lower IQ than the generation before.
[00:14:57] And there's like a correlation between the increase in like all the ed tech and screen time in the school. And so it's like, well, we knew that. Well, we didn't know that, but we knew the kids didn't want to be on the computer three years ago. And it's like the kids were doing all these signals, kind of letting you know it's, they don't like the way it's affecting them. And so then we like completely changed it. And now like the research is kind of catching up. So I think that's the other thing too. Like when you're designing your systems to actually listen to the people in them, you
[00:15:25] kind of be ahead of the curve when it comes to these other chains that will then, that you know, that research will then prove what you already knew because you've constantly been talking. Um, maybe you can take it to another level, but you knew what it was because you've been talking to the people that the researchers finally caught up to. So once they get on board, as far as mindset is concerned, what other things that you were like, okay, now this is the next thing that we need to focus on for y'all. Yeah.
[00:15:51] How to listen, how to listen to the kids, how to listen to the families and how to build that into just how they operate as a teacher. Like we did this experiment this year or just like learning how to communicate with the families at the schools who were in at the main school where the programs are embedded the deepest. What we learned was the parents, we would just send them a random messages about the positive
[00:16:20] things that kids were doing. And the response is the parents would send backwards things like we've never, no one's ever hit me up to tell me anything that like so-and-so has done. That was a good thing. You know, I'll only, and I'll keep going, you know, only get hit up when something bad is at school. Like, thanks for letting me know. Or like, wow, thanks. I can't wait to celebrate with them when they get home. So we learned that was a way to build trust with the families and honestly kind of help strengthen the relationship between the parent and their kid.
[00:16:50] And so that's just like, all right, now as a teacher, how can we build this into your, like, if you're going to send them news, if you've got to already communicate with parents, do it this way. Like, do it in a way where you build trust. And so then when you do need to hit them up about something else, it's easy. But you know, you don't want, the parents don't want to feel like every time they see your, a message from Class Dojo or see your number pop up on the phone that their kid's in trouble.
[00:17:15] So let's begin the year lowering their anxiety and building that trust so that when you do need to talk to them, it becomes easier. They're going to be more open-minded. They're not going to come into that conversation with like anxiety or fear. So stuff like that. It's like, you already got to talk to them. So let's just change the way that you do. Right. Communication is key. Communication is key. Especially operating from this space of being in a program provider role.
[00:17:39] Like you never really know what the contact that the school has with, you know, the families. But it's important to extend the olive branch to be like, hey, you know, give them those, those good moments first. So if they ever have a situation where you got to be like, well, so-and-so wasn't doing the proper thing today. You've already built like a foundation that's already solidified in trust. Yeah. Because like, you're not just some random stranger. Like, they know who you are.
[00:18:10] Exactly. Exactly. They know exactly who you are. Based on all the things that you're doing, how has the InnerSpark Learning Lab influenced the culture of schools as well as have great impact on the communities? We've heard some of it, but go a little bit deeper. Yeah. One of the things that we have seen over the past couple of years since we like really started going like deep on the listening is that the main school we partner with, like attendance has gone up.
[00:18:40] And again, we're not trying to make attendance go up. We just trying to listen and then use what we hear to adapt. And I think if you do that, then certain things will happen. And one thing that has happened has been attendance has gone up. But I think it's also important for people to like not become attached to, hey, we need to increase attendance. It's like, no, what are the things that will make people want to be here? Do that. Like change that. And then folks should come. Okay.
[00:19:07] So being that you've given them this platform and also giving them the skills, I think that's important because I want to highlight that. Being that you've given them this platform and you've given them the skills to kind of advocate for what they want and what they need. How have you seen that change the school environment around? Oh, yeah. I think one, it also starts to improve their own ability to work with each other. So they're not so dependent on adults to like figure out their own like interpersonal or
[00:19:36] like interrelational, I guess, problems or issues. But they're young. They've had less experience doing it. So yeah, they might need some help. But, you know, they start to learn how to do that on their own. In part because they, the way we like end up teaching to, or the way we teach, they also end up have a better understanding of themselves. So which then makes it easier for them to relate to others. So I think that has been another thing we've noticed.
[00:20:02] And then I'd also say, back to the parents too, like just more, like better communication, better relationships, but more engagement with the parents and the families, which also, you know, if you, as you can do that, you're starting to build entire school environment that with the kids, with the families, with the teachers, which I think makes it easier
[00:20:29] for it to actually work and stick because you're building this thing with, with the group. You're not just like focusing on just the, I mean, the kids should start there, but they're a huge part of it, but you're also working with these other people in there that because they're adults, they have more influence. Well, thank you, Jacob, for sharing that information with us. But before we go, we're going to go ahead and jump into our professionals lounge. All right, everybody, we have made it to our professionals lounge.
[00:20:58] So my question for you, Jacob, is what are some of the things youth organizations can do to build good partnerships with communities and schools that they serve? Yeah, I think all my answers keep coming back to listening. So I start in and then go out, like know the kids in the program, what are they interested in? What do they want? What would they like to see? Now you've got that information.
[00:21:24] Now, when you go talk to community organizations, people in the community, small businesses, you can build your plan about who you reach out to based off of the interest of the kids. And then with them, before you just start pitching your thing, like understand what are they trying to get? What would make this time valuable for them? For some, it would just be contributing to the community. For some, it might be they're trying to raise awareness. So they would love to be at some events you do so that they could pass out stuff or have
[00:21:53] food or have a booth or whatever the thing might be. Talk to them so you can understand what they're trying to figure out right now. And then how can your partnership provide value to them and then also provide value to the kids or parents, families in your program? And the only little caveat I'll say is, and that doesn't mean you need to design a brand new thing. Like if you're going to do a, what's a good example?
[00:22:18] If you're going to do like a, what's the good after school event? Like a, I'm about to say a STEM night, but I don't even want to do that. But yeah, let's say you're doing a STEM night. You can talk to the kids to learn about what parts of STEM are most interesting to them. Cool. Then when you're going out in the community, you're trying to find people who have those, that expertise so you can bring that to the STEM night.
[00:22:46] And again, some of them, they just might want to pull up and do the thing. Some, they might want to do visibility. So there might be a session where they could chat with everyone, or at least they're able to pass out their stuff. Or I don't know, y'all can figure out a way to be able to improve their visibility. It's like, if you're already going to do this event, do it in a way that maximizes the interest and the needs of the people you're bringing to it, which I think again, makes people feel like they were heard. It makes the event more relevant to folks. And you become part of the infrastructure in the community.
[00:23:14] That's like building these relationships because you're designing your stuff in a way that actually brings people together in a way that allows them to achieve what it is they want to achieve. I know that's right. Very true. So with that being said, y'all, that brings us to the end of our show. But Jacob, if they ever wanted to get in touch with you to learn more about your program, if they wanted to know if they could come have you for a training of some sort when it
[00:23:41] comes around to youth voice, transforming mindset, all those wonderful things, how do they get in touch with you? Oh, for sure. If you are just kind of interested and want to be able to kind of follow along with what we're learning and be a part of that conversation, if you go to intersparklab.org slash podcast, you can drop your email there. But if you're interested in like a training or resource development or sharing, if you go to our website, intersparklab.org, you just go to the bottom. There's like a contact box. You can reach out there.
[00:24:11] Those actually come to my email. So I see them. Yeah. So those are two main spots. Well, everyone, that brings us to the end of our show. If you like what you heard and you enjoyed our conversation, make sure that you're following us on YouTube, but also hit that like button so we know what you are enjoying. You can also find us on other podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts if you want to listen to our audio version as well.
[00:24:37] To get more behind the scenes stuff, make sure that you're following us on our social media accounts, Instagram and Facebook at School After Hours. Well, that's all I have for today. In the words of Mr. Arthur Ashe, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Until next time, y'all. Bye-bye.