Relating to Kids Through Storytelling with Jerry Kolber
Jerry Kolber produces a variety of STEM and youth oriented media for outlets like Netflix and National Geographic. Several of his productions have been recommended by Common Sense Media among other awards for offering kid friendly programming. In this conversation, self-described "bad student" Jerry shares insights from his work producing kid friendly media and how good storytelling can help teachers connect with students.
Additional Links
Atomic Entertainment producers of Who Smarted, Brain Games and other programming
Transcript
Scott Lee: Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, the professional educator’s thought partner-a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and education organizations please visit our website: www.oncoursesolutions.net and reach out.
In this episode we’ll talk about learning with storytelling. Our guest, Jerry Kolber grew up in the swamplands of South Florida where he loved the outdoors, was involved in theater and was a ranked Lincoln-Douglas debater, but as he’ll tell us shortly, he was not a very good student. More recently he has co-produced the Emmy nominated National Geographic series Brain Games and the Netflix series Brainchild. He is co-founder of Atomic Entertainment which also produces a variety of documentaries and the podcast for children Who Smarted. Both Who Smarted and Brainchild have been recognized by Common Sense Media for offering kid-friendly media content. We will talk about his projects for children and youth, but we’ll start with Jerry sharing why he says he was a poor student in school.
Welcome Jerry to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
Jerry Kolber: Thanks. Great to be here.
Scott Lee: All right. So, you have said that you were a bad student and that some of your high school teachers would have laughed you right out of the classroom and into detention for suggesting that you would produce a neuroscience informed TV series.
Tell us a couple of stories about teachers and how they affected you.
Jerry Kolber: Sure. Okay. So first I want to say I had good teachers. I was it was me. I didn't have a word for it at the time. And I, you know, having gotten into more educational research and making educational shows, I understand now that I was an experiential learner and the way that science and math in particular were taught when I was in high school was very non experiential.
It was more abstract and theoretical. My brain just doesn't work that way. And I, I just was a, challenging student in the sense that I would either be making jokes during class or like distracting other people in the case of math class. I just stopped going for a while. I would just go to breakfast and I actually ended up having to, uh, I had to repeat math to graduate.
I mean, that's, that's how, that's how bad a student I was at those subjects. But on the, on the other, on the other hand, I was really good at history and creative writing and journalism and debate and so I think my, my brain just didn't, didn't know how to do the work even though I was trying it was very frustrating for me but it manifested as me being not a not a joy for some of my teachers.
Scott Lee: Yeah, and before we got started when we were chatting you even mentioned that you had been involved in debate and had done very well. I guess that was a little bit different because it really was experiential, right?
Jerry Kolber: It was deeply experiential. Our, our debate teacher, a lady named Fran Berger, she treated us all like adults and she really pushed us to think critically and to not ,you know, quote unquote phone it in. And so I did, I did a debate format called Lincoln-Douglas in which you have to take both sides of an issue depending on the coin flip and so it forced me at a young age just to really understand how to look at an issue from both sides and look at it deeply in a way that you could argue persuasively either side of the issue. And that I didn't realize it at the time, but that experience with Fran and that debate squad really formed my brain in terms of critical thinking and the ability to write and communicate.
And so that was something I was very good at and did well; did well locally and did well nationally. But for whatever reason, that sort of critical thinking, those critical thinking skills did not translate for me into my science and math classes.
Scott Lee: And so now here you are with education films or education series that you've been involved in producing like Brain Games and Brainchild. So now you're doing science. How, how did you make that jump?
Jerry Kolber: So, I was always interested in science, like even though I wasn't doing well in science- school, science school, science class; I was always at the Museum of Science. I was always doing astronomy. I was doing experiments, like we would have like science kits up in my house that we were working with, building model rockets, like all of the things that are related to science I was doing outside of school.
And when I got into working in television for the first 10 years or so, I was working on unscripted shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Inked and, and a lot of shows for A& E. And I got the opportunity to work with National Geographic Channel and they were looking for a new way to do a brain science show. And they'd had some development that had been done internally.
But for me, it was an opportunity to think like, “what would a neuroscience show look like for me when I was, you know, 17 or 18?”
When I was interested in it, but was afraid of the topic, like just was like, “there's no way I would understand neuroscience.”
And to think of it like, “how do I make entry points into that subject for people who are curious about it, but believe there's no way they could understand it?”
And so, in a sense, my, I used my critical thinking and communication skills to unpack how to communicate and educate around science in a way that would resonate with people who were curious, but potentially scared or put off by, by a tough subject.
Scott Lee: And the hosts on those shows are teenagers themselves too, right?
Jerry Kolber: On Brain Games? No, Brain Games was, was an adult host, Jason Silva. Oh, okay. That was for Nat Geo and we did like okay.
Scott Lee: He still looks pretty young. But yeah, he does.
Jerry Kolber: Yeah, you know what? He could read young. He's he was in his 20s. I think when we did that but, but Brainchild came after Brain Games and that was specifically designed for students who are in elementary school in junior high and that was hosted by a teenager a woman named Sahana Srinivasan.
Scott Lee: And now you've got a podcast, that comes out several times a week called Who Smarted,
Jerry Kolber: uh-huh,
Scott Lee: which is pretty much for elementary kids, that I've listened tell us a little bit about that and I'm always curious. Why would you want to create a podcast for kids in the first place? And an educational one? I mean it's, it's, it's interesting, but it is very educational too.
Jerry Kolber: I mean, honestly, nothing makes me happier than helping spark someone's curiosity and creating a sense of wanting to discover more. I just, I just see that. We are even though we're living in what we call sort of the information age when we're all plugged into our phones all the time, and there's just tons of stuff coming at us. It's not really mostly information. Most of it is, is entertainment or like mind candy or brain candy.
And so when I look at kids in particular, the pressure they're under with all of the the, you know, standardized testing and then all the extracurricular stuff and the social anxiety of being online, the opportunity to create something that would get kids off of the screen, be fun and educational was like, so interesting to me and my, my partner, Adam Davis and the, the whole team over here.
And we'd always been thinking about that. And then when the pandemic happened and we were, we couldn't go out and shoot TV shows and we knew every kid was basically at home stuck to their screen staring at school all day, we thought this is the perfect opportunity to create something that's screen free, educational and fun that kids can enjoy, that parents would enjoy.
That's exactly the right amount of time for a break or a car ride at 15 minutes and, and would also just get kids excited and curious about a world that was beyond the four walls that they were mostly stuck in and that idea was Who Smarted and it just, it, it not only survived the pandemic and just kept growing and growing. So now it's become kind of a global powerhouse, a show that's in, I think we're in like 5,000 plus classrooms around the country and, you know, millions of listeners. So, yeah, so
Scott Lee: You mentioned getting kids active, which may sound for our listeners, particularly educators, may sound kind of strange coming from somebody who produces media like yourself.
You've mentioned when you were growing up, you were a active and outdoor kid. So now as a media producer, because oftentimes, I know, you know, when I was a teacher, I'm like, “gosh, my kids are watching too much TV when they go home.” What, what do you think the balance is?
Thinking about it as your own experience, wanting to be an active outdoor kid, sort of that balance between, screen time with an active lifestyle.
Jerry Kolber: It's a good question. I, I don't know that I have an exact balance, but I do know that when I grew up in South Florida, so the weather was pretty good all year round.
And so, we were always outside. And when we got too crazy inside for the adults, they would tell us to go outside and play. They actually, I mean, it was a different time, but they didn't really care what we did. Like get on your bikes, go play, go do something, just get, get outside. Right. And it always worked like getting outside, just always kind of reset your brain and calmed you down.
And I just, I, I don't know what the balance is, but I know that we don't have it now because kids are. Just on their phones during the day at school, then they're watching stuff at home and they're then they're chatting with their friends on the screen. And, we sort of ignored it and moved past it.
But there is a large body of research that will tell you that it is actually neurologically and physically bad for the development of a brain to be on a screen all the time because of the refresh rate of screens. It actually is, it has a negative effect on, on, on brain development and contributes to a lot of things, including anxiety.
And so I don't know, honestly, Scott, I don't know what the balance is, but anything I can do to get kids off of a screen for 15, 20, 30 minutes at a time is going to be good for him. So that's what we do. We, we, we, we're not, we're not, we're not fighting the whole war, but we're fighting our little battles.
Scott Lee: Oh, that's great. And it fits in well. You're, you're absolutely right with, with where the research is about getting kids outside. So, let's. change gears a little bit because you are a storyteller. Whether it's fiction, nonfiction there's always an arc to the story.
And so what I'd like you to do, if you could just share a little bit, why storytelling is important, for learning and is there some advice or some things you could share with teachers about storytelling that might improve their work working with kids?
Jerry Kolber: A great question.
You know, storytelling is, it's really baked into our DNA, right? It's not, it's not an add on to the, to the human race. It is kind of who we are, right? Before we had even verbal communication we were communicating through, through drawing and before drawing we were communicating through rhythm and dance.
All of those are forms of storytelling, right? It's encoding an experience into something that other people can see and experience, even though they weren't there. That is what storytelling is. Before we have the written word when we only had verbal communication, everything was passed down from generation to generation by story.
So, it's in our, in our DNA to both want to receive information by stories and to tell stories. And so, it's, it's just an easy, it's an easy way to think about. Coding information, right? So, this goes back to my experience in school with the math classes that I couldn't relate to, right? But if someone had said, okay, here's a situation that you're going to encounter and start to tell me a story and get me into a story. And then, and then gets to a conflict in the story and the conflict has to be resolved by using some sort of math equation or math formula. Well, now I'm invested. Now it's a game. My competition is the spirit competitive spirit is aroused, you know, I'm like ready, let's do this.
So, then I'm going to be interested in the math. All kids respond that way. Not all kids respond to story free learning. And so, what we do with Who Smarted is we create these little 15-minute stories that are around different topics that some kids might find easy, some kids might find challenging. But all kids, because of the way we present it, they find it fun and engaging.
And we don't claim to teach that topic, but we're just trying to use storytelling to make it, to prime the kids to be ready to learn. So, by the time you come in with a curriculum as a teacher or homeschooler, or even if it's just a parent listening, kids are ready to learn and discuss, right? And so that's, that's why I think storytelling is important, and that's how we, how we lean into it and how we use it.
Scott Lee: Yeah, and that's interesting that you started to also talk about how it would help you, as somebody who has self-described as a difficult student, right, you know,
Jerry Kolber: Yeah.
Scott Lee: and I was not a great student either, especially in high school by any stretch. Are there other things, or what do you think teachers should know about, students like yourself and, and how to reach them, storytelling, any, anything else?
Jerry Kolber: Yeah. I mean, one thing that we've suggested a lot and it seems to be, we hear it's pretty effective, is when you are, as a teacher, when you're coming into, a class that you're introducing a new topic, whether it's science or history or, or, or whatever the, the topic is.
Trying to relate it in some way to something that the kids know about outside of the classroom, like anchoring it in reality in some way is. A light lift way to bring the whiff of storytelling into the classroom, so if there's a something in the news or a local tradition or local place or someone that they know in the school that you could relate the science or math or history to it could be very helpful for just getting kids like anchored and we call it leaning in right.
You want to try and get them to lean in a little bit rather than just passively hearing sort of flat information. We, we suggest that because like, we know teachers, man, you, you know, they're so overworked as it is like no, no teacher I know has time to go home and think about like crafting some complex story scaffolding around their lessons. So, we try and come up with easy ways to do it. Besides obviously using the stuff we make, like Who Smarted in the classroom if you just want to do something really quick, I, I suggest that, like, just, just start with what's a relatable way to anchor the lesson into something in their lives.
And that, that, that sometimes is enough to get the kids to lean in and, and, and start really paying attention.
Scott Lee: As somebody in the creative field and, works a lot with people who are creative, what are some ideas you have on how to support student creativity?
Jerry Kolber: I mean, look, first of all, big picture. That is such an important thing to do because, creativity is really sort of the spark of, of like interest and problem solving and all of the things that we're going to need kids to be doing. Like there's obviously, there's always a lot of push to change behavior in society. To affect change that we need around climate and resources and all this kind of stuff. And there's a lot of arguments over what's going to change things and what's not. And the truth, the truth, I think, is that the problems of today are going to get solved by technology of tomorrow. So, technology of tomorrow and engineering of tomorrow is going to come from.
Kids who are students today. And so the more we can encourage creativity and creative problem solving and thinking outside the box the better the future is going to be and so I just on a big picture level just say like anyway. You can support creativity is great on a micro level it's really just like thinking about ways you can introduce creativity into the classroom whether it's, if you're doing a history lesson, can you tell, break the kids into four groups and tell them each to come up with a, a two minute skit about the thing you're teaching, you know? If it's a math class, can you break the kids into groups and have them come up with real world scenarios where this math problem might apply?
Right? So just little ways to, to kind of spark creativity, but without deviating from your, your lesson plan and without necessarily creating more work for you as the teacher are, are the kind of things I like to suggest.
Scott Lee: Oh yeah. When I'm teaching, if my students, although usually now my students are adults, but, if they're working harder than I am, then I've done my job. And if I'm the one that's working hard, I have not, I have probably not done a good enough job.
So, yeah. And definitely it was like that in the classroom. Any other advice or thoughts you'd like to share before we go?
Jerry Kolber: No, this is great. I mean, we've covered a lot of ground and, and not a lot, a lot of time, which I think is, my favorite kind of podcast format.
Scott Lee: So where can folks, find out about, find out about your work?
Jerry Kolber: I mean, honestly, the best place to go is whosmarted. com. That's W H O smarted. com. Who Smarted is for elementary school kids, 6- to 10-year-old, 10 years old. And one thing I will say is that we hear from educators all the time that they, they love using it in their classroom as a way to settle kids down from a transition or as a way to introduce a topic.
And about a year ago, we kept hearing from teachers that they couldn't use it because it had ads. So we've actually started an ad-free version that normally costs money, but we give it away free to all educators, so they can use the show as a resource in their classroom. It's a free lifetime subscription to the ad-free, version of Who Smarted Plus and if educators go to whosmarted.com and click “educators.” They will get instant access to the, the free version for educators. So that's, that's the one thing I would suggest is, you know, whether it's our show or other shows, using audio and screen free educational material in the classroom. It's a great way to get kids settled, get them interested and, and maybe make your job a little bit easier.
Scott Lee: Alright, well thank you so much for joining us today, Jerry.
Jerry Kolber: Thank you. This was great. Thanks, Scott.
Scott Lee: The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and youth organizations strengthening learning cultures and developing more resilient youth, please visit our website at w w w dot oncoursesolutions dot net. Also, please follow me on social media, my handle on Instagram and Bluesky is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com
This has been episode 2 of the 2025 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about us, in person and on social media. Also, five-star reviews on your podcast app helps others find us. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is a production of Oncourse Education Solutions LLC, Scott Lee producer, a member of the PodNooga Network. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website w w w dot thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Theme music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee.
