No 18 Inspire, Inform and Entertain! Sir John Jones with Neil Hawkes

There is a small and select band of educational professionals in the UK who have not only had their achievements recognised in the New Year’s Honours List, but who are also able to inspire others with their outstanding knowledge, passion and enthusiasm – Sir John Jones is one.

Knighted in 2003 for his services to education, Sir John worked most of his professional life in challenging schools across the North West of England, his last post being the head-teacher of a large secondary school in Merseyside.
His achievements and reputation for straight talking, leadership and creativity led him to be invited onto various organizations, panels and think tanks including the National College for School Leadership, the DfES’ Leadership Development Unit, the Teacher Development Agency’s National Remodelling Unit and visiting posts with both Manchester and Liverpool Universities.

Sir John Jones is inspirational. He should be compulsory listening!

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For more information about the transformational work of the IVET Foundation and its global Affiliates visit http://www.ivetfoundation.com 

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Well, hello everybody. It's uh so good to be with you today. Um I can't help giggling at the moment because I've been talking to Sir John Jones for the last few minutes, and he said to me just a moment ago, I thought we were making the podcast already. And uh so it's really, really good to uh be with you. I'm Neil Hawkes, the uh founder of the IT Foundation, and I'm just host of these wonderful podcasts. They're wonderful, not because of me, but because of the uh guests I have. And I am I'm so delighted, I can't tell you how delighted I am today, uh, to have a dear friend of mine, someone I've really truly admired for many years. In fact, uh we've shared stages together, and I always say, I'm not getting on first, or I mean I'm not getting on last. I'm going to put John Jones first, because John is absolutely wonderful. Uh so John Jones is known as uh uh an inspirational speaker uh worldwide. Um he's got a background which I'm not going to go into at the moment because I want him to tell you about it in a few minutes, so I'm not going to say too much. But in 2003, he was knighted by Her Majesty for services to education. And by gosh, doesn't Sir John Jones uh deserve such recognition. So without any more ado from me, hi John, nice to see you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Oh, thank you, Neil. I wish my mum could hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

By the way, in deference to you, is it all right if I call you John? Of course it is. Of course it is, Neil. Oh, good, that's good. Because I don't want to offend protocol or have a listener get in touch with me saying, Neil, you were not deferential enough. Why weren't you bowing and scraping a little?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Anyway, they'll recall you to the Royal Society of Knights Bachelor, and they will come for you, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

That would be good. There's a part of me that's really jealous of you in that way. I'm joking, of course. Um, John, can you uh tell us a little bit first of all? Uh I'd love to know about your your beginnings. Where did it all start? Where did were you born and all that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Oh wow. Um well I I was actually born. This is really I I find this fascinating because Sir Ken Robinson was a good mate of mine, you know, the legend, and he truly is a legend. The word is used loosely, I think, these days, but he he was a legend, Sir Ken. And he was born in 1950, and so was I. And he was born in the maternity hospital that I was born in, and he was a mad Everton fan, just like me. And when we start, we we suddenly we were talking one night over a you know a glass of beer, and uh it just that that was my story that I was proud because both of us were really pleased that when you were born in this maternity hospital in Everton, not in Liverpool, Everton is an area of Liverpool, that you get Everton stamped on your birth certificate. And so we both had, I think, Everton stamped, I still got it on my birth certificate. And we always say that that Evertonians are born not made. They they don't choose, they're chosen. And and so we were so proud that we were born in Everton. But of course, Everton was right in the middle of Liverpool and got completely um, well, basically destroyed in the Blitz, the Liverpool Blitz. So, what they did in the early, late 40s, early 1950s, they shipped us all out into new towns, and one of those was a place called Kirby, um, and that's where I grew up. So I was born in Everton in Liverpool, and when I was about 18 months old, two years old, we would we were shifted out to Kirby, and it was strange because I mean it was a the big council estates then, which were the late latest thing. Um the trouble is they they built all the houses without any shops or any facilities, so you had things like the van would come around with all the groceries and and stuff in to buy. Um and and the bookmakers was around the garages at the back, so I would take my dad's bets around and and so on. Um, so we we lived, I lived a very happy life. Although Kirby does get a bad reputation sometimes in the press, it was a wonderful place to grow up in because it was truly comprehensive. Um, you had all walks of life there, and I remember never once feeling frightened of going out in the dark or you know, being out late, and we would just go out as kids and we wouldn't see our parents until you know the sun had gone down because we were hungry and we'd come home. We'd play test match cricket on the road and not a car would go past, you know. So that was the kind of upbringing I had. And then tragically, you know, my dad was my hero. He uh he took me to my first Everton game in 1958, and uh I I stood amongst 50,000, 60,000 people, and a goal was scored, and I couldn't believe it. And from that moment I was transfixed with football. So I I'm a mad football fan, and and really pleased to say now I'm the chair of the trust board of Everton in the community, which is the charity of of the club, and I'm also chair of governors of the Everton Free School and Football College, um, which I'll probably tell you a little bit more about later. Um, but my dad, who'd fought in the jungles, the jungles against the Japanese, and uh was a merchant seaman, um, and he was the army boxing champion, and he died when I was nine years old. So he left my mum and my brother and myself, our Tom and myself, um, with no money really. I mean, we were in real poverty. I mean, my mum made sure it never felt like that. But I do remember going down in the mornings and I'd say, Mum, on the doormat, um, there was money. I said, the money fairy's been again. And uh I later discovered that when the other women in the street had won on the bingo in the Catholic club around the corner, they'd put some money through our letterbox because they knew Mum was on her own, you know, with the with two boys to feed. Um, and uh and I thought, you know, how lovely, you know, that community again that we talked about earlier, Neil. Um, so I I I was lost. I we did I was because I was a Catholic, they didn't allow children to go to the funeral. So there was no such thing as closure. They didn't really understand grievance in those days. So the next day I was on a boat going over to Ireland because I'm 53% Irish, I now have discovered on my DNA. So the Irish family took my brother and me, we went over with with my grandmother, um, and my mum joined us later. So and the reason I tell you that is when I got back, that was in July, it was July the 29th. Um, no, it was June the 29th, uh, St. Peter and Paul's Day. And uh so the whole of the summer holiday we spent in Ireland, and then I came back in September. But I pretended that my dad hadn't died, that somehow in my head he'd gone away to sea again. And um, because he used to go away to sea to some amazing places and be away for months. Um, so I I convinced myself almost that he uh he hadn't died. And and a Catholic priest, Father Kevin Finn, who is my hero, uh, took me under his arm really, and uh and he said to me, you know, he he realized that I wasn't admitting that my dad had died, and rather than confront me with this, he just started to say things like John, do you want do you want to be in do you want to be in the choir? And uh and I would say, over my dead body father, but do I want to be in a choir? It wasn't the kind of street kid activity. He said, Okay, well, do you want to be an altar boy? And uh I said, What you want me to wear one of those dresses that the altar boys wear? And I remembered him saying, Ray, Big Ray is an altar boy. Now, Big Ray was the best footballer. And I said, Big Ray's an altar boy, you joke it. He said, Yeah, he is, he is. I said, Okay, go on, I'll give it a go then. So that moment, a bit like your moment, you know, when somebody discovered that acting genius in you, from that moment, it started to change my life because he then persuaded me to join the choir. Because I was an altar boy, I had to learn Latin. So these nine-year-old boys, we could all speak Latin. And when you think about our literacy levels were really low, but we could all speak Latin. So, and then he introduced us to four-part harmony and com and and common chant, and all and then one day he said we're going into town. Now, very few of us have been into town, into the city, to see the Vienna Boys Choir. And and I was transfixed that these boys stood around a piano singing in four-part harmony. And he introduced us to acting, we used to put plays on for the parents and do all sorts of things. And um I remember through the uh the choir, I met Brian. Now, Brian was um, you see, uh, let me shoot forward to. I wrote a master's uh course that I delivered at Liverpool University about leadership, but I came across Hart and Risley's research. Have you come across that? You know, the um the old notion that by the age of if you're born to a professional family, by the age of four, you get about 40 to 50 million words. If you're a child on benefit, which I was, you get 12 million. So the and Hart and Risley called it the early catastrophe. And um, but it was also they looked at things like encouragement. So if you're born to a professional family, you get something like 12 encouragements to every one discouragement. If you're on benefit, you get twice as many discouragements as you do encouragements. So not only does it affect your literacy levels, but it also affects your self-confidence and your self-belief and your aspiration. Well, what Father Finn did is he suddenly started to introduce us to those things. And um, and and this is probably the first time your word values that I really got to grips with values. You see, he he he he taught me something called warmth. You know, he was such a warm human, he opened up all the schools at the weekend and uh because they were closed and the kids had nowhere to go. So he personally opened them all and he he started paying some teachers to come back, you know, to play with us and to put the gym on and swimming pools. And so he he taught us warmth. He taught me worth, you know, this idea that that um that you're worth something, that you are worthy. Um he gave me the words, he he made me pal up with Brian. Brian lived on the other side of town, but he was an altar boy and he was in the choir. Uh he was the only boy I knew growing up who owned his own house, you know, because we all lived in council houses, but he owned his own house. His dad was on the council, I think his mum was a teacher, and Brian used words, and we used to say, Brian, come on, give us a word, and he'd go, obfuscate. And I'd go, oh, that's brilliant. Give us another one, you know. And he just he he he taught me disestablishmentarianism, you know, and all and he knew all these words. He's the kind of kid we say we used to throw stones at, you know, but he was a cub, and I could never be in the cubs because I couldn't afford the uniform. So I was envious of him, but he was such an inspiration. My mum didn't say, Are you going to Brian's? If I was going out for the day, she'd say, Are you going to the library? Because he had books. We had no books in our house. Um, and that's still, you know, there are still quite a number of kids nationally who don't have a book in the house. Well, I was one of those kids. He had a lot, he had a room full of books. So I I got stuck into Oliver Twist and Black Beauty and all those things. Anyway, the reason I tell you all of that is because one day Father Finn asked me what I wanted to do. And uh I said, uh, I think I want to be a priest, Father. Now, I didn't want to be a priest. I wanted to be Father Finn. I wanted to be like him because he'd given me the words, he'd given me the warmth, he'd given me the wonder. Oh no, I never mentioned wonder. He'd give me the words, the warmth and the worth, but he'd also given us that wonder, you know, going to see the Vienna Boys Choir, speaking Latin, you know, and and uh I said, Well, what will it be like if I go to train? And he said to me, He said, You'll be able to play football every day. I said, Where do I sign up? But he was, you know, so but also he said you'll be able to learn Greek as well as Latin. And then I said, right, what do I have to do? He said, you have to take an examination to get in, because it was a boarding school, the seminary. And uh so I said, right, so I I turned up for the exam, not knowing about Hart and Risley and the early catastrophe. And the result was I produced, I think, the worst maths results that they'd ever had in the entrance exam. And it and I later realized it wasn't because I wasn't any good at maths, it was because I was being asked in this exam to turn fractions, which I'd never heard of, into percentages and percentages into fractions. And it was just we hadn't done it. And I read that kids that in my position were about 18 months behind the rest of the country. Now we didn't know any of this stuff at the time. I could do add-ups, takeaways, multiply, divides all day, but they weren't pushing us, they weren't, you know, they were giving us a watered-down education. These poor kids from Kirby, basically. So I failed the exam miserably. I cried my eyes out. Um, I thought I've let my mum down, I've let my family down, and most of all, I've let Father Finn down. Um, anyway, I I toddled off to then secondary school, um, and it was 2,000 all boys. It was an amazing place. I mean, it was a it was a bit wild in places, as you can imagine, but it had a football team to die for, you know, most of them went on to become professional footballers. Um, and in my class was John Conte, who became the world uh middleweight boxing champion, won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. So at sport, they excelled these kids, you know, we kids. Um, anyway, he asked me during the year, are you going to take the exam again? And I said, Oh Father, I said, I was so upset. I said, I don't know if I can put myself through that again. Anyway, I said, I'll have a think about it. And then I came back and I said to him, Father, I'll have a go. Go, I'll have a go at it. He said, Great. I shall tell the archbishop. I remember it was uh Archbishop Enan who became a cardinal. Um, I shall tell the archbishop. Anyway, uh, he came back to see me a few days later. He said, I've spoken to the Archbishop John and I've got good news for you. I said, What's that for? He said, You've passed the exam. And I said, Father, I haven't taken the exam yet. He said, No. He said, When I told the archbishop that you were prepared to put yourself through that again, he said, We want boys like that because they were talking about grit and something that you know the Finns talk about sisu. You know, we we don't really have it's kind of quiet relentlessness, you know, the refusal to give up. And I didn't know anything about that at the time, but one of the things my mum and dad had instilled in me is a kind of fighting spirit, and he said, That's what they want, so you don't have to take the exam, you've passed it. So I went and I watched my life transform. But what was sad is I kept going back home to Kirby to my mates that I'd grown up with, and I saw the deprivation that that they were going through without realizing it. And what I was being presented with, I mean, we were having debating societies. I mean, when the the lake froze at the the college where I was, we played ice hockey, you know, we we we fought ancient Greek sea battles on on the boats when the farm, when the fruit was ripe and the potatoes needed picking, we we did all of that on the farm. And it was so I did Greek, I did Latin. I didn't so when I went home on the first holiday, he said, What's it like, John? I said, Father, I'm in the football team, I'm captain in the football team, and I'm playing every day. He said, I told you, and I said, but most of all, I said, There are Brians everywhere, you know. In other words, you remember my mate Brian with the words and that I was surrounded by these boys who were just amazing, and so I then got a kind of missionary zeal, not to just become a priest, but that education and the different types of education change your life if you're lucky enough to find your place, you know, or find yourself in the kind of place you need to be. Um, so that drove me, because as you know, I I spent most of my teaching career in challenging schools. Um, that's where I wanted to be. In fact, I went back to Kirby to be the priest.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Why weren't you a priest, John? I thought you were training to be a priest. What happened?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I was, I was.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Why did you get out of there?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I was once asked that at an interview for a teacher's job, and it was to be the head of French in a school, and uh because I did French and Latin. My degree was French and Latin. Um, and I just said, Cherchez la femme in in the interview. I said, Well, I'd never come, I've never really had a girlfriend till I went to university, and so I was being prepared because you went to the seminary at 11, 12 years of age, and you were there till you were 26. But HMI for my cohort changed the rules in the sixth form and said, You must allow these boys to experience university if they want to go. So I went from the seminary to university.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Where was that, John?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I went I went first of all to Bangor, uh, Bangor University, mainly because I wanted to um I wanted to watch Everton uh every week. So I could get back from Banger to Liverpool. The the head teacher of the school, I actually applied to Liverpool and he wouldn't let me. He said, you need to get away from Liverpool University, from Liverpool, you need to get away and be away from the culture and grow a bit. So I did, but Banger was the next one. I didn't want to go to Manchester, so Banger was the next one. Um, but I ended up playing football for the university, so I didn't go to me football in the end because I was playing football all the time for the university. What happened is at the end of university, the college, my seminary rang me up and said, Would you like to come and take over the languages department? Because the priest had just left who taught there. So I did. So I went back for two years on the staff. And so I was it was amazing because all the teachers who taught me, they were all priests. I was the first layperson ever to be on the staff. All the uh the teachers who taught me were now my friends as. opposed to my teachers, it was kind of spooky, you know. It was so I went back to and it was then that I decided that uh this wasn't going to be for me that actually teaching was something that that I was really I felt passionate about. And and particularly I was a bit of a socialist well I still am a socialist and I was very into social injustice and how you know there are haves and there are have nots and there are advantaged and there are disadvantaged. And and you know our country I I do honestly believe Neil that that I don't think racism is is now the big issue it was. I think we've as I travel the world and I know you do a great deal I think our country are really getting to grips with you know the issues around the the the challenge of racism and I think we're doing quite well I think snobbery is much more pernicious because it kind of undermines the whole way the British view things. There's the kind of the aristocracy still they're still there and and and so I without being too political you know I when I know that only six percent of kids go to private schools but 60% of the judiciary and the military and in medicine and so on hold down the positions of power there's still a lot of work we have to do around real equality and equity as well. So that's that's what drove me really and and that was my passion to to tackle social injustice in all its forms.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

It's fascinating listening to you because I think listeners will have got an incredible insight into your formation as a human being in those early years growing up in a disadvantaged area but having um opportunity and and your own innate intelligence to to see things and to understand and and to be critically aware absolutely incredible. Then you became a teacher um what take us through what happened in those early years of teaching after you left the seminary where did you go on to and and what did you do leading up to your first headship well it was quite bizarre really I remember the very last lesson I taught at the seminary so I was there for two years um and and I suddenly realized with my socialist hat on again that really I'm working in a very comfortable I mean it was it was a public school by any other name um but but it was it it was comfortable and if you like the students were I mean they were teacher proof in the sense that you know they were going to get good results.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Probably if I'd been average they'd have got the same results. You know I did all I could obviously to get them the best results I could but they they were motivated and switched on and they worked and I thought this is not really what I want to do. So the very last lesson I taught was an A-level uh upper sixth lesson on on existentialism Jean-Paul Sartre was just before their A-level exams and I'd applied to Ashton County Secondary Modern School and uh I taught uh the very first lesson so if you like the next lesson that I taught was to set 12 at Ashton County Secondary Modern School and it was French you know and and that these kids they were just a delight you know they were that I just thought this is such a culture shift but this is where I want to be you know that there were kids who you know there was a boy there he had a colostomy back you know do you want to see me back sir yeah okay oh right around and then this show him your scars you know they were so this lad had climbed over you know with the overhead cables on a railway and almost barbecued himself and he was covered in and this was his party piece and and I just thought I'm at home here and and I remember one of the guys that I had the first cup of coffee said so you're trying to teach that crowd he said French I said yeah I said I'll tell you what by the end of the month every one of those kids will be able to count up to 30 in French so we had a we had a couple of quid on it you know and I thought right I've got to it wasn't just like every single one of them had to be able to do it you know so um what I did I took some slides of my I'd been to Paris I used to go to Paris a lot and I've been to Paris and I had loads of slides of Paris so um I remember saying that you know I'm gonna show you some slides because we're going to go on an imaginary trip to Paris and that actually caused me to be dragged into the head teacher's office because parents had rung up saying I haven't got the money for my kid to go to Paris because what I realized is the word imaginary just went over their heads you know so they're going to Paris with Mr Jones so I suddenly had to undo that but not I put do you remember those carousel projectors? Yes indeed I remember the one we had was one of the very first remote control ones so you could stand at the back of the room and click the remote in your pocket and the slide would change and of course the kids thought this was wonderful but I didn't tell them I had this remote control and and they said sir how does that change when you're over there and the machine's over here I said you have to speak a number in French into the little grill you know where the air used to cool you you have to speak French into that grill. You don't I said go on I said what's the word for one and they all went because they all knew I said right what's two now half of them knew two said right we've had the first slide who's gonna do it Johnny come on and he and he shouted duh into the back of the machine well of course I'm over there and I clicked the thing and it changed whoa there's a cue what's three I won me I won my money that's how I taught them all to count to 30.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

If you shouted at the machine it would change you know John I've got to ask you I could interrupt when did you do you remember when your humor started because you've always been a a real raconteur with humor and you teach with humor.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Was it in those early days of schooling or was it earlier than that you when you were a teacher or earlier it's Liverpool Irish Neil it is I mean I'm not saying nobody else has a sense of humor but particularly the cocktail of Liverpool and Irish is is magical I mean they're they're lyrical the music is lovely you know I mean just listen to Irish music you know I mean and then the Liverpool sound the Beatles of the the there's something about and and also I think because of the the struggle you know the what was the word I came across in um in Chinese Chiku is the Chinese it it it means eating bitterness and when you live a life of struggle that you there are certain qualities that emerge you know and you look at the you know Ireland the poetry of Ireland and the literature and the music and the and they were a you know they were a they were a downtrodden you know the British were you know the history is it the British were awful to the Irish but out of that emerged this wonderful creativity and and imagination and so I I think this this in fact I carried the principle of Chico into my teaching because I think who's it calls it the learning pit and he I've forgotten his name and I should credit him with it. But he says you know what and it he got it from Eastern teaching because what Eastern teaching does is they they give you the problem and then let you try and solve it before they tell you how to solve it. And which is a wonderful way of doing things whereas we explain it first and then give you the problem. Now I know we're into now problem solving and we're doing less of that but it was the differ a fundamental difference between East and West education and learning um and and their notion is that you have to go through the struggle you you have to experience it because out of that will emerge the genius we talked about before that is as we believe in everybody that's the genie in the lamp isn't it we all have the genie in the lamp and struggle and bit eating bitterness as the Chinese say has a has a kind of a potential to release that genie from the lamp in in in a way that many other things can't and and we don't seem seem to still in our education system understand that.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

And these are the exams you have to take and and you see my worry is because that works for this six percent of the population why change it and and and so we've got a real struggle on our hands to release the genie that's in all kids in the other 94% it's was that John why you became a head teacher was it because you saw an opportunity to help shift the system yeah absolutely absolutely it was I mean one of the first things I did when I became I went back to Kirby to be a head teacher um so my hometown it was in the it was in the um the school next to the school I I'd gone to a school called St.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Kevin's which was about 2000 old boys and next door to us was Roughwood which was um we call it the Protestant school but it was a state school and uh it was mixed so we found that fascinating because the Catholics were divided into St. Gregory's girls school and St. Kevin's boys school Roughwood was mixed so we were fascinated staring because the as the a common fence separated us you know so I went back to be the head of Rufford school um and one of the first things I noticed I remember it it it staggered me really that I wanted to introduce awards because there was a subculture of it was cool not to wear uniform not to do homework there was that kind of subculture of you know I mean it was rebellion really um and I thought I wanted learning to become cool and we started to introduce award systems but the kids wouldn't come on the stage to pick them up because it was regarded as you know but over a period of about three or four years I remember getting a letter in about year three maybe three and a half years from a parent bitterly complaining that her son had been missed out at the awards assembly and I thought we've we've changed this flywheel now is turning because now it was not only cool to go on stage but if you didn't get on you know people were really complaining you know why am I not up there? So we knew we were shifting that culture. So it's you know what we did um we um panorama did a documentary where Roughwood School this was before I I arrived as head had been linked um and done an exchange with rugby school and so what I did when I got there I resurrected these links it was a few years before but I said wouldn't it be great if we took the kids down to rugby school and recreated that because what I wanted to do was to get our kids to see how the other half lived and um so off we tootled down to uh to rugby school and uh it was amazing it was amazing and I remember on the journey home on the bus we were talking about uh the the effect that it had had and uh one of the kids said do you know what sir they're just like we are and I said of course they're just like we think we'd be in the zoo you know I said of course they're just like we are um and they said we're as good as they are aren't we I said yeah of course we are and uh and then one of the boys said now sir he said there's a big difference I said what is it he said they've got dinero you know money he said they've got dinero sir in his scout's accent yeah and uh I said you're right there you're dead right there uh I said so what have we got to do if we to achieve what they've achieved he said we've got a graft haven't we sir that's what we've got to do and one of the girls said I remember Nikki said is that what you mean by social injustice in your assemblies sir I said that's exactly what I mean it's not fair that they just get it they're lucky we've got to work so hard to achieve what they've got and I remember saying shouting on the bus are we up for it and they all went yeah you know and I thought that's the mission achieved so then we took them to New College Oxford Neil ah we took them for dinner because we had a link at New College Oxford and one of our staff had been a student there so we got we took them for dinner. Now you you know you're Oxbridge aren't you so yeah I got in the back door well well well those lovely you know the oak paneled doors that you step into this other world yeah and uh to be honest you know we went for dinner and I aged 10 years solid silk solid silver cuttlery my godness mate I thought these a knife and fork would be life changing for some of these kids and I said I lined them up I said right no bags no coats I've counted every knife and every fork you know but anyway that that was they were all laughing at that and then there was this lad who's one of the most able uh most able students I'd come across and uh I talked to him about this thing called university and he'd never heard of a university uh and uh I said well look you know I was the first child in my family to go to university you know and it changed my life you know and I kept on but he didn't want to do it he didn't and he's he's from a very tough background and um I remember during the meal I was just walking around as they were all chatting and and I just said to him uh I think he was I'll call him JB I said J B Oh no he called me over he called me over he said sir sir can have a word I said yeah what is it JB and he put his his arm out like this around the oak panels and all the the regalia and the paintings and he said is is this what you meant by university I said yeah what do you think mate and he he put his hand there so nobody could hear me he said it's fantastic I want this and he went but you see what I always said is our kids you can't tell them about it they have to touch it and taste it and and smell it you've got to take them there and of course great thing then we also then did you know the um the Houses of Parliament there's a a balcony at the back where the great and the good have their meals well George Howart God bless him our MP for Knowsley he got us down there to have some food on the balcony and all the I remember Seb Coe was there and you know it was like wow and it was just it was just amazing so that was the kind of thing that we started to do because we wanted to just raise their aspiration and you know that young woman called Nikki Nikki's a barrister now and at the Everton School of Football College when I'm chair of governors I rang her up and said have you got any time to be a governor Nikki and she became a governor at the school oh wow she gave me four years isn't that a lovely kind of circular story where it ends up with her as a barrister and uh being a governor at our school can I take you on now for after the after your uh two headships uh in tough schools you then went into a a not so tough school what was the motivation for that john um it it it was the sixth form really i i'd only I'd only ever taught in 11 to 16 schools and loved it absolutely loved it but I just thought from my own experience just to get the whole kind of spectrum of it I I just wanted to be in a school with a big thriving sixth form and and that was the attraction um and and that was the main reason that I went there but you know what I'll I'll tell you this Neil it it was a lovely school but I always felt when I went there so I'm not going to name it but I I always felt it was cruising before uh Offstead invented that term it was chugging along doing okay but it had such potential Roughwood when the very first league tables came out rough uh Roughwood was part of Knowsley Knowsley vied with people like Tower Hamlets to stay away from the bottom of the National League tables because if you were second from bottom the heat was far less intense than if you were bottom and I remember when Knowsley finished bottom and we finished bottom of Knowsley that you know we had the media outside national media wanting to speak to the head of the worst school in the country it was a bad time. It was during my early days in Kirby it was a bad time um but it was I always say the challenge of getting the staff on board in that context the staff at Roughwood were amazing and to change that school around was far easier as a leader than to go to a school that was satisfied with itself and was doing okay and was oversubscribed and so on but could do so much more. That was a tougher journey isn't that interesting yeah similar experiences to me on that one but then you were enticed I think I don't know if enticed is the right word but you were enticed by the government to go and do great and good things away from your headship tell us a little bit about that next stage of your journey yeah that it it came about with do you remember the Excellence in cities project which was just I mean to me it was magical really um it it it it was focusing and concentrating on you know what I call the have nots and the disadvantaged you know for probably for really the first time ever lots of money was coming in to try and raise the aspirations of these kids who've been disadvantaged for so long. So I got involved in the Excellence in Cities project and then I got kind of sidetracked into neighborhood renewal which which I really enjoyed because it was holistic. The school I believed could be a real catalyst for growth and renewal and transformation. But it it had to be in terms of the neighborhood and the community So I really got into community education then, and that schools should never close. And that, you know, particularly in very challenging areas, the school could be a real beacon for everything. Because, you know, then we were setting up victim support in schools, and all sorts of different um societal issues were being focused in the schools. So I I mean I loved all of that. Um my only regret about it was that we did have what was called a gifted and talented project. Uh, if you remember, because the the government was very concerned about the fact that there was a there was a drainage, if you like. I mean, the the the I I remember when in Ruford when we started to really succeed, getting calls from the private schools because they wanted our best kids. Um and and almost it was kind of patronizing. They felt like they were doing us a favor by taking, but we needed those kids, you know, in terms of the culture of the school. I wanted the whole spectrum of of uh ambition and achievement in the school. And if you chop off one end of it, then you know it starts to um it starts to change, you know, culture is Jared Egan said, the way we do things around here. And and you have to have that right mix of people, don't you? Um, and it was it was skewing it one way, and I was worried about that. So we started gifted and talented programs to stop the hemorrhaging. And you know it worked. Where it didn't work was that I I mean, I'm not saying that there aren't very able kids and further down the ability spectrum and performance spectrum, but the notion of gifted and talented is so fixed, and it certainly is only applied to a few, and and it worried me because of our notion of genius. You know, I come from the classical school where genius was within everybody, and if you read Homer, if you read Virgil, the first couple of lines of their great works, they would call upon the muse to help them because they knew without the muse, they couldn't show the genius. The genius had to come and visit them, and they accepted that today it might be with me, tomorrow it might be gone. But I would always keep waiting and working and striving. And I love that notion of genius, and then suddenly in the Renaissance, I mean, fundamentally, I think, because the church fell out with the politicians, and this whole idea of of God and the spiritual and and the spirits and the muses, they debunked it, you know, and it was about the it was innate ability, but only in a few, and that became the definition of genius, and and that's that was such a sad point in history in terms of the way we view achievement and ability. Um so I uh well how did I get on to genius? And um, oh yeah, you talked about the uh the broader work that I started to do um about neighborhood renewal, about you know, I used to I used to worry that I remember in uh Kirby they spent a lot of money fixing everybody's roofs, and nobody noticed. And I said, you know what, I I've got this sinking feeling, and and I'm still struggling with this principle. Would it have been better to go to a small area and make it amazing? And everybody could see what is possible, and then everybody would want it and would fight for it. But if you fix everybody's roof, nobody noticed. Where's the money going? Well, it's everybody's roof, uh the roofs don't leak anymore, yeah. But it hasn't raised aspiration. So I always struggled with those tensions, and that was as a result of moving just out of a school into looking at social transformation, you know, and trying to change whole communities. And how do you how do you do it?

SPEAKER_02 48:32

John, was it was this about the time when you started to think, uh, John, I think I should start going out as a a speaker and in to see what I can do to sow seeds in others. Uh, because you then started at the same time being very well known uh around the country and then internationally as this amazing speaker that you are. Uh was that the time when all this started and the reasons for it?

SPEAKER_00 49:04

No, do you know what? Somebody said that you you get promoted in teaching because you're good at something else, and it's actually true, and it's a process of leaving the classroom, which is one of life's tragedies, in a way, isn't it? The best teachers end up out of the classroom. But anyway, that's another point. I was asked to do a talk, and I remembered it was it was a February night, it was freezing, it was miserable. I'd had a really tough day in school, and somebody had asked me to go to this primary school in Toxteth um to um to do a little talk about some of my work that I was doing in Kirby, and I thought, I do not need this, you know. But I thought, no, I'm gonna do it. Now, but at that time I was playing in a duo at the weekends. I was actually earning as much money playing in the duo as I was teaching. I always say I took a vow of poverty and became a teacher, but I was I was playing in a duo, and our rule was one week you could be playing in front of a thousand people in a wonderful cabaret club, and next week the agent had put you in a pub with a man and a dog, and but you gave the same performance, and that's what you had to do. So I thought, no, you know the principal, I'm gonna be in this little primary classroom that there's gonna be, I asked how many were there, they said they're gonna be about eight people there, and they'll be sitting on you know those little infant chairs, you know. And I've got to do this anyway. Um I did I did the talk and I really enjoyed it, and they were a great group of people, and one of them was a police officer, and he said to me, We've got a police conference in somewhere near Preston, and I'd like you to come and do that talk for the police, you know. So I said, Yeah, okay. So I tip up to this other thing, and um there were about 200 police officers in it, and I suddenly thought, whoa, I was really nervous then. So it was a big step up from the eight. Um so I didn't a talk there, and there was a the there was a guy, was it Nigel? What was Nigel's second name? He ran. Do you remember Victim Support? Yes, a national organization called Victim Support, and he was at that conference, or one of his uh leaders was at the conference, and they came up to me and said, Would you like to come down to London um to the Hilton Hotel and uh and do that talk for our audience down there, which won't just be police officers, it'll be all sorts of people, it's a victim support conference, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I said, Yeah, I will do it. I said, as long as I can bring some of my students with me, because I knew uh it was being presented then by the Channel 4 news presenter whose name escapes me, but it was kind of a big deal, it was televised, and I knew there were going to be something like seven, eight hundred people at this. And I just wanted to see my kids walking up into the Hilton Hotel, you know, with the commissioner and all that stuff. I just wanted them to experience it, and what was lovely is when I was doing the talk, um, he stopped me, the the news guy. He said, John, can I just stop you for a second? You have some of your students here, don't you? I said, Yes, I do. They're all sitting there and they were in the middle, all in their green blazers. And he said, Can I ask them to stand up, please? And they stood up, and hundreds of people cheered and clapped them. And I I was just, I was, I was in tears, you know. I just, and I thought, that's transfer, that will transform you. You remember those W's I said that Father Finn gave me? That's wonder, isn't it? Not only is it worth, it's wonder, you know, and that and they're two of my their values to me. And uh so suddenly I was a speaker. It happened in about a month, so I didn't plan it. I just suddenly thought, do you know I'm not bad at this? People seem to like it. And then the audience is the audience is suddenly getting bigger. And as you know, remember we met, didn't we, at a conference? We did down in uh Oxford. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

How many years ago is that, Neil? That's that's a wild.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

It's uh 20 years ago, I think, if not more. And then and then we were in the where was it in uh in uh Belfast. We sat and had a pint in opposite the most bombed hotel in Northern Ireland, where we were sleeping. Absolutely amazing to you. So yes, John, what's your formula for for good speaking? You have a formula, I think, which uh you always remember, and I think anybody who's listening to you on this podcast would be fascinated to know if they want to be a good speaker what they would need to do. What's your formula, John?

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Well, it it it it's three things really. I think if if you've if you're bold enough to stand up and speak in public, do you know that's the number one fear for human beings? Death is number two, apparently. So so it is it's a big challenge, but quite a few people want to do it now. Um, that you have to entertain, you have to inform, and you have to inspire. And I always ask people what is the most important for the three, and they always make the mistake of inform is the most important, and that translates into boring talks, usually, because what what holds the whole thing together is the ability to tell stories. Yeah, you've got to be able to tell stories. Um, that's why do you know I I love the internet. I read a great article not long ago called Campfires in Cyberspace, because people gather now, you know, in chat rooms, and it's like the old campfire because learning was done around the campfire, and the elders would sit and would tell stories, and the children would gather and families would gather, and then now and again uh a traveling merchant would join them and then give some more insights. And and I just love the idea of campfires in cyberspace, and that's rooted in good storytelling. But if you can make people laugh and you can make people cry, and you can you will glue the information into their heads, yeah, because it's inevitable. But if you just give them information, well, they're they'll fall asleep after they reckon it's about three or four minutes, don't they, before your brain switches into something more interesting.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

What do you think we should do with the education system to sort of uh gear it up as it should be now in the 21st century? You you you know fought for social democracy uh all your life, and uh where should we go now?

SPEAKER_00 56:41

We've got to wrestle the exam beast to the ground, it is so inadequate. This idea that you sit kids in a room so many meters apart, and then you hand out a paper and you say, you may now open the paper, you know, and all and then hope that they've remembered enough of what you've poured into them over the last two or three years, and they regurgitate it, is absurd. I mean, it is fundamentally absurd, especially when we have now the most amazing brain called Google. I mean, Google, Google is amazing. Um, it's it's a global brain. You don't need to carry stuff anymore, it's at their fingertips, isn't it? So I think we have to wrestle the uh exam beast to the ground for sure. Um by the way, I was in the I was in the class. This happened to Ian Gilbert and it happened to me. Uh a student put his hand up and said, Sir, why do I need a teacher when I've got Google? And of course, being the teacher, I know our job is not to answer questions, our our job is just to comment on really good ones. So I just said, brilliant question, and then shut up. It's called let the silence do the lifting and the learning. So I just I just said, great question. And then he looked at me and he said, Teachers are stupid. Now I know the rules of behavior management, they lie in the smiling eyes of the teacher. Thank you. And the ability to be an actor, not a reactor. So I stayed calm and I smiled. I said, Well, I am a teacher, would you like to develop that point? He said, Yeah, teachers are the only people on the planet who ask you a question to which they already know the answer. He said, That's stupid. And you know, Neil, break it down when you think about it. Absolutely absurd, isn't it? Imagine walking down the road tonight and saying, excuse me, can you tell me where the red line pub is, please? And then the guy goes, Yeah, it's second on the left, and you go, I know, well done. Give yourself a pat on the back. They'd send for an ambulance, wouldn't they? But even now, in every school in the country, certainly, it's happening. Um, anyway, I refused to answer the question. Um, and then Sarah put a hand up. Remember this young girl called Sarah, and she said, sir, you're struggling with the Google question, aren't you? And I think deep humility is a key characteristic in good teaching. Even if you know, pretend not to know. Yeah, it's empowering, isn't it? So I just said, Sarah, I am struggling. Can you help me? She said, Yes. She said, I think so. She said, You see, I'm gonna go to university to study history because Mrs. Smith didn't teach me history, she taught me the love of history, and I think Google can teach you history all day long, it just can't give you the love of history. That's Mrs. Smith's job, and that's our job. And you know, when when you look at now, was it that research came out of Oxford a few years ago saying that I think then it was in the next 25 to 30 years that about 40% of the jobs that we know will be gone, and you look at now the implications of AI. I mean, really what we should be focusing on to me is that what AI can't deliver, and you and I were talking about this, weren't we, just before? But things like um social interaction, absolutely huge empathy, the ability to be empathic. That's why I can never watch uh The Apprentice. You know, he drives me up the wall. And what we're supposed to be teaching our kids, and this is what good leadership is like, that you're rude to people and brutal, and and it just so I'm I'm worried about empathy, um uh things creativity and imagination. Now, whenever I go into school, that's what I'm looking for. Where are they developing those skills? Because that's the only way we can fit our kids for the 21st century and for the challenges of all those things that we're gonna face. And and the good news is, you know, people are now talking, and I've talked about this for years, um, the four-day working week. People are talking about it now seriously, you know. Poor old Jeremy Corbyn, and I wasn't a fan of his, but he talked about this in his manifesto. And I remember on question time, somebody raised it, one of the Labour candidates, one of his uh candidates raised it, and the audience mocked this person. And I'm thinking, why aren't you cheering and clapping? Because, you know, a four-day working, we were releases, you know, to develop our social interaction, our empathy, our creativity, our imagination. Because sadly, the statistics from the world of work are that most people are unhappy in their place of work, and that saddens me greatly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:24

It is very sad. John, I can't let you go because uh um listeners uh may not know that you are a patron of values-based education, and and I the parent charity of values-based education. You are someone who you know lives and breathes uh values. Uh what's your take on values? Why are they important to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Wow. The the clever answer is that they give you a real sense of moral purpose. You know, I I have uh, you know, I did, I'm not doing a plug for the book, but I've written a book called Um Dusting Off Thunderbolts, and it's a long story about the title, which I won't bore you with. But I talk about my muses. I talked about the ancients and their notion of genius and so on, as we talked about before. And so what I did is I've been guided by muses, and and one of them, and the the ones that I picked up from around the world, so uh one of them is Ikigai, which I picked up when I was working in Japan, which is the reason that I get out of bed in the morning, and and it's huge in the Japanese culture, and unless you have a purpose, then you won't live a happy, successful life, and yet their purpose is very simple things the way they eat, the way they communicate, and so on, you know. So there's a value to me that you have to have a purpose, you have to have a reason for getting out of bed, and you have to have a reason for coming through the gate in the morning to your place of work, and and you're impoverished if you don't have that. And and along that journey of knowing why you're doing it, you have to have beacons that that guide you that are uh not a moral purpose but a moral compass, and and and those things need to guide you. So, you know, what I uh then go on to talk about is um have you come across umbuntu?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Yes, indeed, in Africa, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

In South Africa, yeah. It's a it's a it's just a beautiful I just love saying the word umbuntu. And and Desmond Tutu, he defined it as I am because you are. You know, that that notion that we can't live separately, we can't live in conflict. You know, there is such a thing called love. I don't know if you've ever heard Andrew Curran speak. Andrew is is a consultant neurologist, he does a very technical talk about the brain and all the different aspects of it and what each part does and so on. But at the end, he said the one thing that this this unique organ thrives on, and he writes across the screen, love. You know, that that's that kind of sense of togetherness, and and another one is Ohana. Uh I came across that in in Disney actually, you know, in Lilo and Stitch, the Disney movie. Um, and and it was the film crew who made it, um, who made the film. They said the guy who drove them around, they went to the they were filming it in Hawaii, or it was based in Hawaii. And um They um they actually uh were amazed that the guy who drove them around knew everybody wherever they went, he knew everyone. And and they said, How come you know everybody? And he said, Ohana. He said, We are all a family. And and what the South Africans will say, or the Africans will say, and that what binds us is umbuntu. So it's uh Ohana is together some trust, and umbuntu is I am because uh we are. Um and I suppose I couldn't leave this without saying another muse that guides me on that that beacon, if you like, on the moral road is is Sisu. Um the Finns invented it. We don't really have a word for Sisu. Um we try, I think grit is the nearest you get to it. But what they I I came, I was talking to um Pazy Salberg, who's a great guy. You've probably worked with Pazy. I mean, he was the brains, well, he was the education minister, wasn't he, in Finland when they were top of the world league tables, you know. Um, and he said there were a couple of words that we don't have a word, they don't even have a word for accountability, you know, in in Finland. Isn't that amazing? And I said, Well, what do you have? He said, Professional trust. You know, I'll I'll educate you, I'll train you, I'll resource you, I'll give you the powers, and then you get on with it. And I I don't need to keep coming back to test you and then stick you on the front of the newspaper if you failed. He said, that's where that you went wrong. He said that that public accountability, he said, doesn't work. But the other word he said is sisu. And sisu is uh quiet relentlessness. People who just get on with it and they just don't give up. But uh so that's that's what values are to me. And I mean, my our family motto is aim high, work hard, be kind, no excuses. I suppose that would probably be on my gravestone.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

Well, I hope that doesn't come too soon, Tom. Because you said earlier that you're a golfer. Tell listeners what you said to me about uh the Friday afternooners. You've got a name for yourselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:29

Oh, the Coffin Dodgers, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

The Coffin Dodgers. Well, I hope we both dodge it a bit longer.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:40

So, John Jones, uh, this has been the most fascinating of uh of noble conversations with you. I'm sure listeners have been fascinated listening to you, and uh, I'm sure they're gonna tell their friends to listen to you as well. Uh, personally, I've learned so much. The the depth of insights that have formed your life are incredible. I I think it's inspiring to listen to you so that people can find their own meaning and purpose in life. Before we finish, John, is there a last word you would like to say to listeners?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

I want to say it to you, really, Neil, and that is, you know, when you said about the future of education, the future of education is values-based education. It is, and so, and and yet there are still so few of you also are flying that flag. So power to your elbow, mate. You know, we can't, but I I don't think there's been a better time now. I th I think people are beginning to realise, and you know, that there are strange things going on in the world at the moment. And you know, what one I mean, I listened to Mark Carney speak the other night. The the is he the Prime Minister of Canada? That's right, and it was at at the core of what he was saying was values, and there's there's now that standard has been placed in the ground, and you placed that standard in the ground a long time ago, and there are more and more people now gathering around it. So well done.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

Thank you. What pleases me, John, is that people are beginning not just to talk about values and argue about them, but to actually do something about things. Living the values is the most important thing, and that's why getting people to think about in businesses and and every everything. And and may I thank you for your support as a key patron of all the work that we do. Uh, we are making progress, but uh we need to make an even bigger impact, and that's what I'm determined to do, as long as I don't get in that coffin that you've talked about too soon, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

Uh yeah, but you see, you I'll tell you what, you represent to me, you're not just bothered, you're deliberately bothered. Yeah, and that's a very different type of botheredness, isn't it? I think let's let's have a beer soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

I hope so, John. Thank you ever so much for talking with me today on our Noble Conversation, and uh and I hope we'll be speaking soon. And listeners, I hope you've enjoyed well, I know you've enjoyed this conversation. I hope you will uh join me at a future time. Uh and also we have, I think this is the 18th Noble Conversation, so you can look through the library to listen to the other great speakers too. So thank you all very much. Um, I'm now going to attempt to stop the recording. Goodbye, everybody. Goodbye, goodbye, John.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Bye bye.