“Who Smarted?” Unpacking the #1 Podcast for Your Classroom with Producer Jerry Kolber

Finally! An educational podcast for your classroom that you and your students will enjoy AND helps with listening comprehension. 

In this week's episode, I sat down with Jerry Kolber - the Emmy-nominated creator of Brain Games (yes, THAT Brain Games!) - and he shared an incredible FREE resource that's perfect for:

• Building listening comprehension skills
• Those tricky transition times
• When you need a quality 15-minute activity
• Getting kids excited about learning

Plus, he's offering all teachers FREE ad-free access to his wildly popular educational podcast "Who Smarted" (we're talking 50 million downloads!).

➡️ To learn more and get immediate access, go to:
www.whosmarted.com/educator/

The best part? These episodes are insanely fun to listen to.

Other parts of this inspiring conversation include:

🍎 How Jerry went from struggling student to Emmy nominee
🍎 His experiences growing up with a mother who taught high school and was a school counselor
🍎 How Jerry took a chance and moved from reality TV producer to producing National Geographic's TOP series for science edutainment.

🎧 I loved my conversation with Jerry, and I bet you will, too!

Want to truly thrive in teaching without sacrificing your personal life?
Check out my signature on-demand course, Balance Your Teacher Life. You can go the self-study route or join a cohort with group coaching for Summer 2025.

Check out all the details here: www.gracestevens.com/balance

📘 My latest (and greatest!) book:
The Empowered Teacher Toolkit
Check out the best-selling Positive Mindset Habits for Teachers book here
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Transcript

  Okay, teacher friends, now this week for something completely different a quick aside I don't know if you're old enough, you know, it, me, grew up in the 70s in London with a dad and a brother who were obsessed with Monty Python, so any time I say now for something completely different, it just takes me back there.

Okay. Okay. But. On this show, sometimes, you know, we do the deep dive into the tough things about the, the work that we need to do really on ourselves in order to be the most impactful  educators that we can be. And in order to have, you know, a very rich fulfilling life. Okay. This week is not about that.

This week is for the, well, first off an amazing resource I'm going to tell you about. But it's for the joy of it. Really, this was the most fun interview I've done in a really long time. And it is with an amazing man called Jerry Colbert. You may never have heard of him, but I guarantee that you have seen something he's done.

You know, I get to interview admins. And fellow teachers and people who've left education and have, you know, other skillsets that they focus on. But this time, my gosh, no, I, to the best of my knowledge, I have never spoken, well, certainly not on this podcast, but even in real life with somebody who's Emmy nominated, he actually created one of my most favorite programs that I absolutely loved called Brain Games. 

on Netflix. It was an amazing thing. But, and he's done many other things too, but he is here on this podcast today to share this resource with teachers. He has produced this amazing podcast just for educators called Who  And they are standalone episodes, and he's going to tell everybody all about them, and he is also going to share a link how educators can get all those podcast episodes to use in their classrooms.

And even, you know, at home with your children, whatever. Add. free because you are an educator and I got to tell you, these podcasts are so engaging and so critical that, you know, in the classroom, I really struggled some of my students, when we did those,  those tests, you know, the mock test, like the, before the standard test, you take, you know, the practice test, right? 

And one area lacking was with a lot of students that they struggled in was was listening comprehension. And then to find interesting things for them to practice that skill, I found very difficult. And I think these short podcast episodes on super engaging topics can really help you with that skill.

But above and beyond that, they are thoroughly entertaining. There's something that bridges the gap that both and  kids can listen to in the car. And And again, teachers in the classroom that is engaging for both. Right. And so, but he's just such a pleasure to talk to. I enjoyed this conversation so much.

So without further ado, here is my conversation with Jerry Colbert. He's going to talk about Who Smarted, the podcast for educators. I don't get to say this a lot on this podcast, but just sit back and enjoy.  Welcome to the Teacher Self Care and Life Balance podcast, where we focus all things personal development to help teachers feel empowered to thrive inside and outside of the classroom.

If you are passionate about education, but tired of it taking over your whole life, You have found your new home in the podcast universe. You will love it here. I'm Grace Stevens, your host, and let's get going with today's show. 

Welcome to the show, Gerry Colbert. I'm so excited to have you here. I'm going to start with your bio. Well, the official bio that you gave me. That's very, very impressive. And then we're going to get to unofficial bio, what we all want to know. This is so cool. So Jerry Colber is the Emmy nominated creator of National Geographic's number one series, Brain Games, and is the creator of the family podcast, Mysteries About True Histories, and Who Smarted, the world's most popular thrice weekly Like three times a week.

That's incredible. Three episodes a week, educational podcast, which reached, which reached over 50 million downloads. As a pioneer in educational entertainment, he's partnered with Pharrell Williams to create Netflix hit series, Rain Games. Continuing his mission to make learning both engaging and entertaining.

A seasoned creator and showrunner, Colbert specializes in developing groundbreaking educational content that challenges traditional learning models while captivating audiences through compelling storytelling. All right. Well, that is quite the bio. I'm so thrilled to have you here, but I have to say in layman's terms, let me tell you.

Where his magic comes in as somebody who is both a parent and a teacher is creating content that is interesting to both  children and adults, right? How many times we try and find something that we can either listen to in class that is appropriate, But also engaging, but even at home, I find with my children, when they were younger, to find stuff to watch that was like kind of mind numbing for me.

I think you've really hit it out of the park. I went on like this deep dive into the episodes of of your series. And some of those episodes. Wonderful. So we can talk about some of those, but I'm interested in the unofficial bio. Like nobody, when they're in third grade and I ask kids, what do you want to be when you, they're not like, Oh, a show runner or, you know, a podcast and none of those jobs existed.

So tell me, how did you get here?  So the funny thing is,  when I was in elementary school, this is back in the, gosh, the seventies. Huh. Yeah. Right. Don't we do? Yeah. I I, I always was doing stuff with audio and I. Oh, wow. Yeah. I, I actually was always making little, like I would, with an old cassette deck, I would like tape things and like make, make little audio shows we had a we called it like a radio station at our school, it was Wistering Pines Elementary School, so it was WPK and the Wistering Pines Kids Network.

Oh! I was part of that, so I gotta say, I think I might have Been there and I kind of strayed away from it and now I'm back, but  I might be that rare kid who actually, if I look back, I was just saying to someone, I was like, it's really funny. I'm kind of doing now what I did when I was, when I was eight. So, you know, I played teacher.

I lined up my dolls and my teddy bears and gave them homework and corrected it and told them off. And then. Went into the corporate world for like 15 years and then found my way back to public education. So, you know, sooner or later we, we land where we're meant to be. I do believe that. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

And my journey, I mean, it took me,  it took me way from audio, but I was always creating content. And, you know, I, I started working for scripted shows when I got out of school. I actually worked in theater for a little bit and then realized they needed to pay rent. And so got got a job working in television as a, as a production finance person, which was very strange because I was very bad in math class in high school.

But I figured out, I started to understand how numbers work in production and that just one thing led to another. And eventually I became a producer and a show runner and I worked in reality television for years. The first show I worked on in reality was, was We Are Eye for the Straight Guy. Oh wow.

Which was, you know. We call it reality TV, but it was such a positive show and such a wonderful experience.  I was a big fan. Thank you. Thanks. And then, you know, I did, I did different kinds of shows for a few years, but I always loved work where I had really sort of lit up inside of me, the idea that you could make something unscripted.

That's a series that's fun. That's also educational and transformative.  And I really wanted to get back to that. And it was, you know, as we all know, most reality television is. It's not bad. It's not necessarily bad, but it's just, you know, it's fun. It's entertaining, but not necessarily purposeful.  And so at one point in my career, back in like 2009, someone told me there was a job opening at the National Geographic New York office.

This woman, Kim Woodard, who's a wonderful producer was going out on maternity leave. And I was put up for the, as a possibility for this job. And I was like, There is no way National Geographic is going to hire me. I mean, my background is in like reality shows. They're like a credible science organization, but as it turned out,  they were looking for someone like me who had a very strong interest in science and a background in more of a pop culture style of storytelling  and worked with an amazing team there, you know, both in development and production.

But the sort of highlight of that experience was getting to create brain games. With, with the team there and you know, that show became an iconic series for, for Nat Geo, even in the first three, one hour specials because we figured out how to make you engage with the TV screen to learn about how your brain works and there was no app needed, no other screen.

We just, we, you literally were engaging with the show and it did so well that they brought us back to make me and my, my producing partner, Adam Davis came back. To create a half hour version of that, which became, and I think still, still is, Nat Geo's number one series of all time. And so that was the moment where I was like, okay, I figured it out.

Like I can, I I've, I've cracked the code on how to make  entertainment. That's fun and engaging. That provides an entry point for people to learn about challenging topics like neuroscience or behavioral psychology. And that just, that just became the ongoing mission and continues to be the mission that drives the company. 

Well, it is amazing. And I have to say yeah, we're gosh, I didn't, I wasn't aware of your podcast when I was in the classroom. And I have to tell you, one of the biggest struggles I had was when we would get doing these standardized tests one area that my students consistently, we would do mock tests, right.

And see where their weaknesses were, was listening comprehension was really They always scored low on it and so I was always looking for good resources and there wasn't a lot out there. I mean, there's so much engaging stuff with videos and that's where kids always want to go to, right? But like to just to sit and listen and absorb information, something that was truly engaging and short.

Like your podcast episodes are, you know, 15 minutes, right? A teacher can find time for that. And the topics are so, I listened this morning, are French fries really French? I mean, like they're really engaging topics and I think it, they're invaluable resources for teachers other than being just, you know, fun.

So at the end, I want you to tell teachers how they can get all of that. Cause I know you have a special platform for them to get that ad free. So that's amazing. But I have, I'm just, you know, massively curious were you always interested in science a month at school? Like, would your teachers be like, yeah, I knew that's what he was going to do when he grew up. 

I mean, did learning come easy? Can I separate those into two separate answers? Sure, absolutely.  There's like four questions in this. I was always interested in science, always, from a young age. I was always curious about how the world worked even through my, my early childhood years into junior high, high school, always interested in astronomy and rocket science and all of like, all of it, all of it.

I was always curious. And, And always in my spare time doing stuff around science and learning and all of that all, all these kinds of like, you know, science kits and museums, science expeditions, and all this stuff.  In school, no, my teachers would be absolutely, they would pass out. If you, if you had said to one of my teachers in high school that I would someday run the biggest science show on national geographic, they literally would have just like passed out.

But like, no way, no way. I was not a good student. I was not, I was in pain. I, cause I couldn't learn that way. I was, I was an experiential learner. I require  my person, my brain just requires like me to be like a little hands on. It requires a little bit of fun and storytelling and like, no, my teachers were great.

It's just, that's not the way the school system is designed. And so for those of us who are experiential learners you know, book learning and memorization and, and abstract math. It's very challenging and very anxiety producing and that's, that's where I found myself in high school. So, yeah. Well, that's sort of, you know, educators trying our hardest to get away from that, but I think there's still something to that.

I always laugh. I have a cousin who you know, I don't come from a very I was the first person in my immediate family actually to finish high school. And then I ended up in university in different countries and, but one other branch of the family. Has a genius. He's my cousin. He's an astrophysicist and he went to Oxford and all these things.

And I remember, he has a story of that he was in the North of England and he had to take a train to London to take the test to get in. There's a test just to get into Oxford and Cambridge. And his teacher had to sign off on it. And he remembers his teacher looking at him saying,  We don't look smart, very clever, 

very clever. So yeah, his teachers were also surprised. But yeah, shout out to Chris.  I think sometimes we surprise our teachers in a good way. I think so. I think my teachers all, all thought I was pretty clever at getting out of doing the work. So, you know, that was the thing, but no, I think, you know, like, of course, and I, I was definitely one of those.

I don't, I don't, I don't hide it, but you know, I think a lot of what drove me to create. Who smarted was this, this, this desire to create something for all kids, not just kids who are naturally good at school and school learning, but for kids who do need some story and some fun to get them excited about a topic.

And so that, that my own childhood experience really is baked into who smarted in the sense that every episode is a, is a story about something in science or history or culture. And it all starts from the position of like, let's have fun. Let's go on a journey. Hey, Things talk that shouldn't be able to talk, you know, French fries talk and hot dogs talk and you know, we go into Venus and the planet can talk.

So we're constantly bringing things to life that you're like, Whoa, you know? And and the kids absolutely love it and teachers do love it because whether they're using it as a compliment to the actual subject matter or if they're just using it to help kids settle in after recess or lunch, it's just, you know, it's engaging, it's educational, it's fun, and it gets the kids to stop and listen.

And the fact that there's no video is so interesting because the audio forces kids to  create their own story, their own visual story.  So it's engaging, it actually engages them in a weird way. More than video would.  Yeah, because they got to use different parts of their brain, get creative. Now, how on earth, as somebody who produces a podcast,  how do you come up with three episodes a week?

I don't. You don't yet. You have a team. Yeah, we have a team.  Yeah, we did initially when we started doing it. This was, WhoSmarted was just a labor of love. We were just trying to help. During the pandemic and get to run the screens all the time. And and then it just kept growing and growing. And so at some point, you know, about a year and we're like, we're going to need a team, like we can't, we can't do all of this ourselves.

So we have this amazing team of researchers and writers and consultants who come up with ideas, come up with how they match with the curriculum, you know, write the stories, all that. So, yeah.  All right. Well, let's tell, we're going to chat some more, but because now this is the natural point, let's tell teachers they can get an ad free version, right?

Tell them how they can do that. And I'll be sure to put the links in the show notes. Thank you, Grace. That's amazing. Yeah. So we, we, you know, we heard that the show is being used in a lot of classrooms. A lot of teachers were a little concerned because the normal version of Who's Smarted has ads on it and they didn't want ads in the classroom.

Although our ads are all kid appropriate. I totally, totally appreciate why a teacher would say that. So we just decided to offer the subscription version that has no ads. Normally cost money. We're just giving it to all educators at no charge so they can use the show wherever they want, however they want.

And so you just go to whosmarted. com. You click educators, you enter your educator email address, and you'll get instant access to the ad free version and 500 plus episodes cover literally any topic you can imagine, so.  That's awesome. I mean, it is an amazing resource. You know, when I was in the classroom, I had my go to's like quick, you know, a little, you know, a 10, 15 minute filler, whatever.

But they tended to be video based.  They were all on YouTube. Like I said, I always struggled to find good resources. For audio comprehension, a lot of kids, you know, get to do that. They might listen to audio books, but you know, that's the story. That's a different, it's not exactly like kind of learning things, but you do put it in such an engaging way that that it is really true, you know, edutainment.

So, so I think that's amazing. So now you have mentioned before to me. Your mom was a teacher? Yes, my mom, Shelly, was a teacher. Even when I was, she was pregnant with me, she was teaching high school. And so I was always just around educators  and my mom was very, very keen to make sure that Not just that we were educated, but that we really had a just like a sense of curiosity. 

And, you know, if we asked something and one of us didn't know the answer, we weren't allowed to like go on with our lives until we figured out the answer. And this was like, again, Back in the day, we had to go find an encyclopedia, right? Yes. Or go to the library or whatever, like something, you know? So there was like a journey, a physical journey to find the answer.

And So that was, that was something that really was instilled in me from, from a young age, just that, that, you know, love of education and love of research learning. And how long was she a teacher for?  Oh my gosh, she, my mom was a teacher for,  gotta be 20 plus years. Wow, wow. And then she became a counselor for the last part of her career in the school system, you know.

Wow, that's amazing. She had a front row seat to have the school system change, you know, really, it became harder and harder and harder for teachers to, to kind of,  It infused creativity into the classroom. Yeah, absolutely. The tests and the standards and all of the stuff. And  it was, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't great for her.

Yeah. No, it, you know, I taught for 20 years. I was a second career teacher, so I had a corporate job before then, but I followed my passion, became a public school teacher. And yeah, occupational self direction. It's like a really important component to like  being happy, right? It's one of the things, you know, this show is about teacher balance and, and it's one of the things that is a struggle to maintain with very stricted curriculums that we have.

So it's amazing that a lot of times we have, if we,  teachers are still creative, we're like revolutionaries. We close the door and we're still. Teaching kids in the way we know they want to be taught, but the fact that your podcast episodes can be aligned to curriculum is very helpful for us because  I need to say we live in that fear and administrator comes in like, what are you guys listening to?

Oh, well, let me tell you,  it's all STEM based.  There's, there's always a way to justify it with the, with the curriculum, which makes it very helpful for us. So I think that is fantastic. All right. Well,  It has been a short episode, so I'm going to indulge my own curiosity. I'm going to ask you, what are some of your favorite episodes?

If you were to  That's a fun question. That's a fun question.  What's the most fun, I mean, I know you're not directly in the, you know, day to day of the recording of it and stuff, but there are some that That, you know, have been done, that you're like, oh man, that's so cool. You know, I, I'm a little, I'm a little, I've got, I'll say a few.

I'm a little scared because, you know, any, anyone, I don't say, a writer's gonna be like, you don't love my episodes? Oh no. So they're not listening. I love it. All writers listening to my show. Come on. You never know Grace. Yeah. But you never know. Yeah. Yep.  This might take off. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. So it's a bunch of teachers. 

I I loved, we did one recently about why socks go missing that I thought was  super fun. I've done some dinosaur ones. Trying to think there was one we did on Oh, you know what? There was one we did. I love birds of prey. We did one recently on raptors and hawks. Oh, cool. That was super cool. Really loved that one.

And then there was one we did where I was like, the strip came in and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is such an interesting question. I thought the answer would be no. It was the question. I was like, maybe it's yes. The episode was called, um, are we in the middle? Are we in the middle of an ice age right now?

And I will say that one is subscriber only, but  since educators get the free subscription. You will be a subscriber. And it's really interesting because it turns out, well, do you want to know the answer? Cause I was shocked. Yeah, absolutely.  We are in the middle of an ice age. Wow. Didn't know that.

Didn't know that. But the episode is really interesting because it takes the kids on a journey. Through that question and like starting from the place of like, of course we're not in ice age, where's all the, you know? Yes. But it actually, it actually, what about global warming, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well that's the, that's the other thing.

We, we've made a decision early on with this show was to really avoid the third rail issues. So if we talk about,  we, we, we do not touch things like politics or religion. Yeah. Any, any of the things that people are needlessly arguing about. Yeah. And even when we touch on things like climate change and such, we touch on it in a way that, that really.

It's more of a, it's just, we speak of it in a way that's acceptable to everybody. Yeah. So as not to, you know, we don't ever want to lose a listener because we took some sort of political position. We take a scientific and factual position. Well, yeah. And that is, I mean, that's critical to teachers, right?

So you know, that's really great. All right. Well, nobody can argue with National Geographic. I have to say that. So even though it seems, I mean, there are days in the classroom, we. Feel we're set up to fail, whatever we say, we're offending somebody, but this is science people, it's science, it's math, it's, there is a healthy dose of, dose of pop culture to get kids engaged and interested.

Like I said, even for I think there's a critical place for it in the classroom, obviously. But I also feel that, you know, many, many of the listeners are, you know, parents too. And I think it does bridge the gap. I, when I was looking at the Brain Games, the episodes, one thing I loved, I pulled them all up was that they were you know, 22 minutes.

That's about my attention span to sit down with children. Some of the ones I loved were about, you know, why is social media addictive? You know, I struggle with that and I know all the brain science, but the one that really stuck out to me was Beat the Parents, pitting kids against parents in an epic battle of the ages, both mental and physical, who will win that?

Yes. And it's interesting. It's not always what you expect. Yeah. That was a brainchild episode we did on Netflix and it was so funny. Like we really did that competition and it was. Quite competitive, like, I was, I was surprised at how competitive the parents got, I gotta say, like, they were like, oh my gosh, guys, relax, it's your children, you know, but they were really out to prove they were.

You have obviously never participated in a staff against eighth graders softball game.  It's about the same level. We got, we got staff members showing up with like, you know, paint on their face and they've been exercising. And the first time I did it, the only person on our team who has actually ever played softball was an aide and he was in his seventies.

Oh my gosh.  And there was another teacher and I together were one person because she couldn't run anymore, but I had never played softball, never hit the ball. So she would hit the ball and I would run for her and you know, we got it done, but it was very, yeah, competitive. Me thinking we're going to let the kids win was absolutely it was, it was wrong.

So anyway, well listen, it has been an absolute pleasure. I know you're a busy guy, so I appreciate that you took the time. To come talk to my wonderful group of educators who are, again, you know, my show is all about, you know, having balance and creating more joyful experience for ourselves and our students.

And I think this is an incredible, an incredible tool. I'm really glad to expose more people to it. Like I said, had I been aware of it when I was in the classroom. Oh, well, you know, I do actually I left teaching a couple of years ago, but I miss the kids so much. I go back and I do substitute teach just to, just to get, you know, just to get back in there and have some fun.

And I, for me, this is going to be, I'm telling you that sometimes there are gaps in the lesson plans and I'm like, well, I don't know these kids. What am I going to do with them for a while? 20 minutes, it's going to be perfect. Like let's get smarter  because it's so engaging for everyone. So it's been an absolute pleasure.

Tell everybody where they can find you. Who's smarted. com W H O smarted. com. And for your educator subscription, free ad free version, just click educators and you'll have it in literally minutes. That's it. Minutes is perfect. All right. I'm going to link all of that in the show notes. It has been, I'm sorry, I would just say, what is it?

Sorry, just, just to say it's also on all the podcast platforms, so they can listen to it any, anywhere they get it, obviously, anywhere they're listening to your show as well. So. Yeah, I just actually went to Spotify and just put in, put it in, up you popped. So fantastic. All right. Well, I, do you have any other?

Exciting plans for the future. Any other ideas percolating? We have some stuff percolating, but right now we're focused on, on who started and we love educators. We love offering them this, this resource. Yeah, that's why I'm so grateful. You made the time for, for me. Oh, no, my pleasure for sure. All right.

Okay. Everybody go grab the resources. You will find episodes you love and until next time, create your own path and bring your own sunshine.