Jazz Rose: Passion for Learning

Daniel (00:00):

Welcome to the Better Leaders, Better Schools Podcast. This is your friendly neighborhood podcast host Daniel Bauer. Better leaders, Better Schools is a weekly show for Ruckus Makers. And what is a Ruckus Maker? A leader who has found freedom from the status quo. A leader who makes change happen. A leader who never ever gives up. Most students in university imagine graduating in four or five years with a diploma in entering the workforce, Jazz Rose, he’s no different, but between years two and three he was faced with a choice, continue pursuing his degree or leave university to build a business that would serve schools full time. Find out what Jazz did and how he processed this choice. In today’s conversation, Jazz also offers some helpful tips about creativity and flexibility within schools. So Ruckus Maker. Thanks for being here. And before we jump into the episode, let’s take some time to thank our show sponsors. Better Leaders. Better Schools. Podcast is brought to you by Organized Binder, a program designed to develop your students executive function and noncognitive skills. Learn more in an organizedbinder.com

Daniel (01:27):

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Teach FX. It’s basically like a Fitbit for teachers, helping them be mindful of teacher talk versus student talk. Get a special 20% discount for your school or district by visiting TeachFX.com/blbs

Daniel (01:46):

Isolation is the number one enemy of excellence and isolation is also a choice. There’s a better way. In fact, here’s what Michelle, a school leader in Maryland has to say about the Mastermind. The best part of the mastermind is a supportive community. School leadership can be isolating, but knowing I have a team of other school leaders with whom to share ideas, struggles, and wins gives me the courage and resolve to do what’s best for my school community. Get connected and level up your leadership by applying to the Mastermind today at Better Leaders, Better Schools.com/mastermind

Daniel (02:26):

Jazz Rose is the founder of J and C Education and Academy. He started in 2004 teaching PE in primary schools. Following demand, Jazz has grown a team of specialists, PE, music, French, Spanish, art and drama teachers committed to embedding a passion for learning, empowering learners to develop confidence, creativity and critical thinking, developing the whole child and improving schools while enriching communities.

Daniel (02:56):

Well, Jazz. Tell us a story of you being a 2nd year in uni, working with a number of schools and how that impacted your 3rd year.

Jazz (03:06):

Well the interesting thing was that there was no third year of uni. I was like 19-20 years old at the time and we’re working with about 11 schools. So my routine was that I would go to university until about two o’clock and then I would run to an after school club somewhere and deliver that and really engage the kids. It got to a time when I think I saw something on the news and we’re talking a lot about the importance of physical education in schools. And I knew in my heart of hearts that, look, I can do this. So I decided to write to 1100 schools that we were working with and essentially say, “Hey, we’d love to work with you full time delivering your PE curriculum.” And lo and behold, three of them said yes. So I quickly wrote up the contracts for some of the teachers, some of the best teachers that we’re working with and they were delighted to go full time.

Jazz (03:54):

I was delighted to go full time, but I had one hinder, right? Which was that I couldn’t go full time and obviously complete my law degree. So I went round, told my mom and my mom was like, what’s going on? How are you going to do this? This is a crazy sort of thing. She then passed the baton to my grandma. She’s probably like, I can’t do it this way. This is a crazy decision. My grandma raised me up, she gave me the long speech and I ended up speaking to my grandma for about 30 minutes on the phone, which was very unusual. And I explained it to her and she was like, look, if you think this is something that you’re really passionate about and something that you really believe in, then go for it. I’ve got your back and that was the transition and the turning point to really starting to state up and to really employ teachers and to really take learning to the next level for primary schools across the country.

Daniel (04:43):

Amazing. And the fact too that you can weather the storm that mom and grandma brought to try to convince you to go back. I’m curious for the listeners, I think they’d find it helpful if you could tell us a bit of the context of what you’re doing and why you were able to solve that challenge in the UK. PE is normally a part of the curriculum, although in the US for example, it is getting cut in more and more, you know, locations. But can you give us a bit of the context in the UK so that people have that understanding.

Jazz (05:17):

Yeah. So over here in the UK, teachers have something called PPA time, which is essentially planning, preparation and assessment. And what we do at J and C is we go into the school and we might cover a year one class for an hour. Whereas that class teacher would then get that PPA time and then we would cover a year two class for an hour or what we do if it’s like a two form entries, we have a PE teacher and a music teacher who would covered year one for a total of two hours and a switch in between, which means that the two year one teachers will get their opportunity to plan and prepare together.

Daniel (05:50):

Gotcha. So your, your team enables teachers to have that prep period at their school, if I’m hearing you correctly.

Jazz (05:56):

Yeah. So the teacher will plan their lessons and during that time they’ll do what they need to do outside the class and we have fun, really engaging to keep the children in the specialist subjects that we teach.

Daniel (06:09):

Okay. And just the last followup question here, and I want to get back to you, but what do schools do if they don’t higher your organization? How did they provide their PPA time?

Jazz (06:19):

Yeah, it’s a variety of different ways. Some schools use teaching assistants to cover the classes and deliver the sort of paperwork that the teachers left behind. Some schools use agencies where they have like short time agreements for teachers to come in and cover a variety of different subjects. Again, possibly whatever the teacher’s left behind. Some schools have their own internal specialists who they employ directly in the school.

Daniel (06:44):

Gotcha. Well Jazz, you’re a Ruckus Maker just like the leader that’s listening and you break free from the status quo. You make change happen. What you did in Uni isn’t representative of that and that also illustrates what leaders have to do, which is take risks. But you have an interesting way of thinking about risk. You use the term, since you know, we’ve chatted a number of times, you talk to me about justified risk. So can you share with our listener how you look at risk and how you identify what you consider justified risks?

Jazz (07:23):

Yeah, I, I always look at the best case and worst case scenario and usually like when I write those out, it comes very clear to me what the most effective decision is going to be. So like the best case scenario in terms of me leaving university was that I was going to develop and grow a thriving business and I include lots of people and really supported schools and enriched communities. And worst case scenario was that the idea was going to fail and I’d have to go back to university either way. I still could have gone back to university and did my third year, which is the kind of conversation that I had with my grandma. So it’s really about looking at what’s the best case scenario here, what’s the worst case scenario and what’s the likelihood, what’s the likely scenario, what’s the likely outcome if you give your all.

Daniel (08:06):

Right. So I’m, I’m hearing you say and I just want to know like your process. So do you literally script out two columns like the pros and cons and then you talk about likelihood to, so are you thinking and considering about probability as well?

Jazz (08:21):

Yeah, so I literally put three columns on the page. Worst case scenario, likely scenario and best case scenario. And I start with the left column, which is the worst case, then go into the best case and then formulate a case of what’s the likely scenario, which is usually somewhere in between. And then in terms of like justified risks, it’s weather. The best case scenario far outweighs the worst case scenario and is the worst case scenario so bad that you can’t recover effectively from it. And again, like in the uni situation, I could always recover from it no matter what happened. I could always go back, and do the third year anytime. So it’s about really thinking about, okay, so is there a justified risk in this? Is the reward much more profitable and much more sustainable and much more effective? And the worst case scenario,

Daniel (09:09):

I really liked that. What I’m hearing is that that’s new to me and how I think about probabilities is just does that, that does the best case scenario outweigh the worst case one? Can you recover from it? I think that was the key. And Ruckus Maker, I hope you’re taking notes because that, that part right there was a gem. So thank you. Jazz. Absolutely. So being a risk taker, one thing I think that requires a level head, being able to thoroughly think through the situation, identify and assign probabilities to those scenarios. I think it also requires flexibility. And that’s something you also enjoy providing the kids that you serve. How do you teach, how does your program teach children to be flexible and adapt in order to be successful in challenging environments?

Jazz (10:01):

I mean I’ll start here. I think one of the most important skills that children can learn is the ability to adapt because society is ever evolving. It’s ever changing. And we need to teach children in a way that allows them to really explore their creativity and in different circumstances. How can you take your skills that you’ve learned in one scenario and apply it to another scenario? How can we take the skills that you’ve learned in one school or one job and apply it to a completely different environment, a completely different situation. And it’s the same sort of psychology that applies in terms of making sure that we’re teaching children to be able to be flexible and to be able to adapt. So the way that we do that is we are in the undercurrent of it, the way that we look at it is the left brain, right brain mentality, right?

Jazz (10:48):

And for us it’s about forming the bridge between the left brain and the right brain. I don’t know about you, but when I went to school there was very much a, there’s very much a theme that people said that you know, you’re academic, well you’re artistic and you’re creative and you have to fit in either one of those boxes. What J and C is about and what our methodology is about is actually bridging the gap between the arts and the academic. It’s bridging the gap between what you learn in science and how to actually apply it creatively to life. And we do that through, you know, building children’s confidence in music, the arts and so on. And we do that through developing that creativity as well as their critical thinking. And again, that balance between the creativity and the critical thinking is a crucial component that allows children the flexibility and gives them that, that malleable brain if you like, to be able to adapt and apply it.

Jazz (11:38):

Confidence is everywhere, right? You can apply in every situation. And the same with critical thinking. It’s about how you apply that in different scenarios. So one of the things that we do in our lessons all the time is we have what we call an explore phase, which is where they apply what they’ve learned. So you have an enrich phase before that, which is where the teacher then models what is expected, gets the children practice and mode what they’re about to do? And then there’s an explore phase where they go, they go away and they practice it independently or in pairs or in small groups. And actually they get to, to develop as independent thinkers, which is really important in terms of being able to send, to adapt and be able to apply what they’ve learned. Hmm.

Daniel (12:23):

That is a pretty robust, um, philosophy of education. How you approach learning. I’m curious, was there a moment where you had the epiphany that your work would be bridging that gap between sort of the practical or the knowledge work in the creative? I’m just curious if there was something that inspired that.

Jazz (12:41):

Yeah, I think the most critical part for me was when I was 15 I was playing for Brentford football club and I was on a trial there for like six weeks. I’ve got to the fourth week and I was doing really well. And then they said, Hey Jazz, you’re doing really well with the 15 year olds. Let’s push you up to the under 19 year olds. And I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, like where’s the 16s, where’s the 17s, where’s the 18s and they were like, no, we’ve only got, we go from 15 to 19 so I was like, okay, cool.

Jazz (13:08):

And I was a center back, so I used to play in a certain position, center of defense and I was very good at playing that position and they said, no, no, no. Well, you’re a little bit small in this group now, so you’re going to play on the left side of the fence. And I was like, Ooh, that’s going to be difficult. The first time I did it and I was like, okay, cool, let’s do it. And then I did it and I played, well the ball went off the sideline and the coach was like, okay, take it from him. And I was there literally for about 20 seconds and tried to get somebody else to take the front end. Nobody would take the front because I had never taken a throw before. And needless to say, it was really embarrassing for him, like not what you would expect in professional football or some, or playing in a professional environment.

Jazz (13:49):

And after that day, let’s just say that I didn’t get asked to come back. Right. But I realized in that moment of that, that following through from primary school, for secondary school, for out all of my learning, I’d never been taught to take a throw and I’d never practiced it. So essentially I’d been taught, even though I’ve been taught by really good professional coaches, I’ve been taught in a linear fixed and one dimensional approach. And I thought at that moment, you know, what if we brought a much more flexible approach to learning in, in schools and what if we taught children not only just like one simple thing or how to play in one position, but how to use their skills and apply different skills to different environments, different scenarios to produce effective outcomes. And what about if we applied that in schools?

Jazz (14:36):

And that was the moment where I thought about PE is really important in schools and it is really important to teach children the basics of throwing, catching movement, all of that sort of stuff. And then thinking about how those simple skills linked through to our daily lives. So that’s something that we miss quite a lot is sometimes we see PE as just like kicking a ball about or moving about. But actually it’s the tactical skills that you’re using every day to apply to life. My cousin and I also used to play professional football clubs. Every single conversation that we have, we always link it back to football. And my cousins always like, you know, my cousin, he runs a business now actually he does coaches for transport for schools. And he says, well, you know, it’s like football, Jazz. You’ve got to go and head the ball, you’ve got to go and attack the ball. You can’t just wait for the ball to come and land on your head. And he’s talking about that in terms of how he’s dealing with his school customers and making sure that he’s, you know, always knocking on the door and always approaching them, always attacking the situation as opposed to, you know, waiting for something to land on his doorstep.

Daniel (15:39):

Got it. That’s great too. And being new to, to football over here, I’ve been playing on Sundays from 10 to noon every week. And so I’m just loving the metaphors and the connections to football, so appreciate that too. Jazz.

Jazz (15:53):

And everybody always says, you gotta be on your toes. You’ve always got to be ready, which is a common phrase that we use in football all the time. And so it’s just about being on the front foot of things and really attacking. Right.

Daniel (16:03):

Gotcha. Well, one last question before our break that has to do with creativity. After the break we’ll talk about creativity in schools, but before the break I want to talk about how you stay creative as a leader. Are there any, strategies or routines and rituals that you employ in your life just to help you stay creative?

Jazz (16:26):

A couple of things really. One is obviously I’m not in schools every day, but one thing that helps me to be really great if it’s just to go out and explore, meaning going out and exploring whether that be in schools and overseeing what different people are doing in schools or whether that be actually going out and exploring something completely unique in the, in the preacher. I’ve been saying, you know, I just went to the theater on the weekend and things like that really tap into my brain of how I can apply that to what I’m doing. Like, where does that link in? And that’s what learning is. It’s like forming those link connections. So I might be watching something like Mama Mia in the theater which is completely unrelated to what I do. But then I’m following and I’m thinking of what are the links, what is the story telling me? What is it conveying that I could actually apply it to my life? And that’s the other way that I, that I, that I remain creative and funny. It’s a reflection. So I have a meditate or I write down every night what my day was like and how I can make it better. And that usually just that process of writing things down then helps to bring out my creativity and my productivity,

Daniel (17:33):

That’s a golden tip. I was sharing how I climbed to the summit of Ben Lomond as well and after that experience, reflecting on it as you reflect and then looking at the pictures, I said, okay, what’s the story here that I can generously share with the Ruckus Makers so that they learn some sort of tip to level up their leadership. So I like that idea is to ah, experience life. Right? And just see the moment to moment what’s happening and understand what is the story there, what’s the lesson that I’m supposed to learn and then the lesson that I can teach others. All right, well, Jazz, I’m enjoying this conversation, but let’s pause here just for a moment. For a message from our sponsors.

Daniel (18:19):

The better leaders, better schools podcast is brought to you by organized binder. Organized binder is an evidence based RTI tier one universal level solution and focuses on improving executive functioning and non cognitive skills. You can learn more and improve your student [email protected]

Daniel (18:41):

The better leaders, better schools podcast is brought to you by Teach FX. School leaders know that productive student talk drives student learning, but the average teacher talks 75% of class time. Teachfx is changing that with a Fitbit for teachers. Automatically measures student engagement. It gives teachers feedback about what they could do differently. Learn more about the teacher effects app can get a special 20% discount for your school or district by visiting TeachFX.com/blbs. That’s TeachFx.Com/Blbs. Alright, and we’re back with Jazz Rose, the founder of J and C education and Academy. We were talking about creativity in the strategies he uses to stay creative as a leader. Now I’m curious Jazz, how do you create experiences that expose students to creative outcomes in education?

Jazz (19:42):

Yeah, sure. The first thing that we do when we go into any classroom is to really engage the children, which is to immerse them in a learning activity that is linked to what they’re going to be learning throughout that lesson. So it’s going to be really, really dynamic. It’s really got to be inclusive. Something that gets the children not only thinking but also physically moving. We find that when children are physically moving and doing things, then they get to explore that creativity in much more productive and effective ways and also they get to enjoy it more. And when you enjoy things more, you learn more and you’ll, you’re more open to learning and taking on new information and being able to apply effectively throughout that period of time. So in terms of just engaging the children and then enriching their experience, getting them to explore what they’ve learned and evaluate in that process throughout so their children make continuous improvement. That’s how we bring that element of creativity and the subjects that we teach are more creative in nature as well. So it’s really about bringing that to the floor.

Daniel (20:44):

Now you have a great show that I was lucky enough to be on Passion and Learning and tell us about why you started the show and where people can enjoy it.

Jazz (20:57):

Well, I started to show partly through listening to your podcast, Daniel, you know, I really enjoyed listen to the Better Leaders, Better Schools, Podcasts and I was thinking, okay so they’ve got these great things in America and one thing that wasn’t so present to me over here was the connection of different schools and bringing schools together and forming those connections because you know, your network is so powerful and school leaders can definitely benefit from working and being more collaborative with other school leaders because that’s how, that’s how we grow. Really the Passion and Learning show is about finding inspiring leaders who are committed to making a remarkable difference and having open conversations with them about how they’re doing that.

Daniel (21:39):

Yeah. Where can people enjoy it? Where can they get it?

Jazz (21:42):

Yeah. So if you just Google J and C Education, Passion for Learning, put it on YouTube, then there’s lots of really inspiring and remarkable conversations on that with, with multiple school leaders.

Daniel (21:53):

Absolutely. And we will definitely link up Jazz’s show in the show notes for this, a specific episode. Thinking back now you’ve done tons of conversations and interviews for your show, is there a theme or a thread that you can see that some of these dynamic educators seem to all possess?

Jazz (22:14):

One of the things that stood out and still stands out to me is that the school leaders that really stand out are the ones that challenge the status quo and the ones that go against the grain and really stand out above the crowd from doing things remarkably differently. And that’s one thing that is consistent with remarkable school leaders is that they do things different from how you would normally expect them to be and they behave differently from how you would normally expect school leaders to behave.

Daniel (22:48):

Didn’t know you were going to say that. And that makes me so happy because that is one aspect of what defines the Ruckus Maker who listens to this podcast. All right. Before we get to the last two questions, we ask every one of our wonderful guests you’re working on. So can you tell us about the book that will be released? Maybe at the time of this podcast or somewhere in a similar vicinity.

Jazz (23:16):

Yeah. So Passion for Learning is really a book about how to engage learners and unlock their potential. Children have so much potential and it’s about exploring and navigating in ways and effective techniques that teachers can use to really engage their children and unlock that hidden potential that’s there. And one of the things that I find is that often the children who are quoted or labeled as having negative behavior, I don’t want those that are  the most in the creative subjects. And the reason for that is we’ve got to really channel their energy in the most creative and effective ways that works with that. The book explores a lot of themes and a lot of stories around how we can channel behavior and how we can channel children’s creativity so that they really get to expand their thinking, not just for a purpose of passing exams once that’s important, but also taking it beyond that, how do they apply those skills and what they’ve learned sort of wider concepts of the world and to be being with their families, to being with their friends, to build a relationships to, to risk-taking, to, to leadership, to communication, all of that sort of stuff.

Jazz (24:21):

Because that’s where life really at it’s communication and really expanding what children are capable of.

Daniel (24:28):

I was lucky enough to see an advanced copy and can’t wait to like releases and definitely recommend to the Ruckus Maker listening to pick up your book. Yes. If you could put a message on all school Markees across the world for just a day, what would it say?

Jazz (24:44):

Children Passionate about learning. Yeah. So really just about getting children passionate about learning. When children develop a passion for learning, they can learn anything and when they can learn anything, they can perform better at anything. And that is the theme of continuous improvement is about always getting better no matter where you’re at. And you know, children are constantly getting better at people. It was adults and leaders were always getting better. Then society’s only gonna get better for us and we’re going to continue to grow and expand upon where we’re currently at and I’m going to be on,

Daniel (25:17):

You’re building a school from the ground up. You’re not limited by any resources, your only limitation is  your imagination. How would you build your dream school Jazz, and what would be your top three?

Jazz (25:25):

My dream school would really be an artistic masterpiece. It would have a lot of, a lot of creativity, a lot of art, a lot of work from the students, a lot of a lot of images around future leaders and leaders that have been there before. Also it would be around making sure that we formed that bridge between creativity as well as the sciences and the academics and making sure that children are able to form those connections between the sciences and the arts because that’s where the juices that we speak about cross-curricular learning a lot. I like to speak about integrated learning, which is integrating lots of different subjects together so that children develop a wider, much broader and richer understanding of what they’re learning in a context that isn’t on the exams.

Jazz (26:17):

They’re actually able to apply in their day to day lives and their day to day experiences. So we look at things like developing their cognition. We look at things like development of critical thinking. We looked at developing creativity and one of the important ones is we looked at developing confidence because children and people can be as, they can be as really rigorous academically as they like. But if we lack confidence then it doesn’t get shown. We don’t bring our best to that situation. And you know, we’ve all interviewed people who are marvelously academic great on paper and when they show up their confidence is lacking or something that’s not quite as there, that’s not quite connecting with us. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about, you know, developing that confidence in being able to apply it in different ways that wherever you’re at you can connect and you can form relationships and you can build connections that actually make a positive impact on the person you’re communicating with. Well, Jazz, thank you so much for being a part of the better leaders, better schools podcast. Of all the things we talked about today, what’s the one thing you want a Ruckus Maker to remember? The one thing that I would want a Ruckus Maker to remember is the one human skill that can never be outsourced is creativity.

Daniel (27:35):

Thanks for listening to the better leaders. Better schools podcast for Ruckus Maker. If you have a question or would like to connect my email, Daniel@betterleadersbetter schools.com or hit me up on Twitter at alien earbud. If the better leaders, better schools podcast is helping you grow as a school leader, then please help us serve more Ruckus Makers like you. You can subscribe, leave an honest rating and review or share on social media with your biggest takeaway from the episode. Extra credit for tagging me on Twitter @alienearbud and using the hashtag #level up your leadership at better leaders, better schools.com and talk to you next time. Until then, class dismissed.