# Make It Mindful — Clean Transcript
**Guests:** Mitch Weathers and Dr. Sarah Oberle
**Topic:** Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom
**Editor:** Lucas Salazar
*Timestamps marked (approx) are estimates after editorial cuts and the addition of intro/outro.*
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## [INTRO — recorded separately]
**Seth [00:00:00]:** Support for Make It Mindful is brought to you by World Savvy, partnering with K-12 schools, districts, and community leaders to prepare youth to thrive in a complex, interconnected world. Make It Mindful is proud to feature Svitlo School, empowering the future social, political, and business leaders of Ukraine to become confident global citizens.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast exploring how students learn, who they're becoming, and how global experiences, human development, and emerging technologies impact teaching. I'm Seth Fleischauer, former classroom teacher and founder of Banyan Global Learning. Today I welcome back to the show Mitch Weathers, along with his co-author, Dr. Sarah Oberle, to discuss executive functioning for early primary learners.
Mitch is a former high school science teacher and the founder of Organized Binder, and he's the author of *Executive Functions for Every Classroom*, which focuses on grades three through 12. For his new book, he is joined by Dr. Sarah Oberle, a veteran first-grade teacher and a science of learning practitioner, to focus specifically on our youngest learners. The book is called *Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start*.
In this episode, we translate executive function into real classroom reality for K through three. We talk about what self-regulation actually looks like in a room full of five-, six-, and seven-year-olds, why "just follow directions" is often an impossible task, and how small choices — your routines, your instructions, and even the physical setup of your room — can either support kids' attention and working memory or quietly overload them.
This episode is best for teachers in the primary grades, coaches of primary teachers, and parents trying to understand why school is so demanding for young kids and how they can support learning at home.
**Seth [00:02:15] *(approx)*:** This episode of Make It Mindful is brought to you by Banyan Global Learning. At Banyan Global Learning, we design structured live experiences that connect classrooms to the world. Global Learning Live is our four-week journey in global competence. Classrooms join an international cohort of three to four schools and meet weekly during regular class time for facilitated 45-minute sessions built around a compelling big question. Students explore global contexts through live virtual field trips, exchange ideas with international peers, and create a final digital artifact that expresses identity, perspective, and connection across cultures. If you're curious about what this could look like in your classroom or school, we'd love to talk. You can find us at banyangloballearning.com.
And now here's my conversation with Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle.
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## CONVERSATION
**Seth [00:03:15] *(approx)*:** Mitch, welcome back to the podcast. And Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:03:20]:** Thank you.
**Mitch Weathers [00:03:21]:** Thanks for having us, Seth.
**Seth [00:03:23]:** Yeah, super excited to dive into this conversation here today. Let's start by just talking about this new big project that you guys have out. You wrote a book. Why this book? Why now?
**Mitch Weathers [00:03:39]:** I'll take that first part. Just piggybacking on our previous conversation, Seth — in 2024 I had written my first book focused on executive functions in grades three through 12. It's been wonderfully well-received, and that's been incredible. But the consistent feedback, almost from publication date, was from primary teachers — the teachers working with our youngest students. They were a little perplexed, because when you say "executive functions" and you do a book study or a PD, it was really interesting: if it was a district-level or county-level engagement, it was all the primary teachers, K through three, that were the first to sign up, just because they saw the topic. And then the book — specifically my first book — on the cover, one of the subtitles says grades three through 12. Those are the grade bands that I felt I could really speak to as an expert from my experience. I'm not a primary teacher, and I really wanted to make that clear. But I just kept receiving that feedback. I'd have a few focus groups with the teachers who would sign up, and they'd say, "Hey, can we just meet separately and talk to me?" And overwhelmingly, it was not that there are no takeaways from this book — it's that it's not directly applicable to what we do. It's not super practical. And that just stuck with me.
Then I met Sarah Oberle, just on the heels of finishing her doctorate work. As we got to know each other, both as friends and professionals, I was like, "I think we have to figure out this book. It has to be out there in the world. There's a need for it. And I think it's a co-authored effort." And here we are two years later talking to you. Did I cover it, Sarah?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:05:43]:** Yeah, I think you said it well. I'll speak as a member of the audience for the book. I felt like this is something that we desperately need in the field, and we need it for just us — because you cannot give us material that's K-12. It just doesn't work in our context, and very often that's what we are given. As a classroom teacher, I felt like this is a huge component of our day. Before we can jump into learning, we have to deal with these other things that don't feel tangible and that you don't really get trained on. But you find out that the kids aren't paying attention, or they're walking around, or they just don't understand how to maneuver in a classroom. So I felt like it was important to write a book that is specifically for these foundational grades, because what we're teaching in these grades is so critical for academic success moving forward.
**Seth [00:06:53]:** And Sarah — last time I talked to Mitch, he called it "studentness." That was the word he used to describe basically how to do school. And obviously that's a huge component of these early grades, because the students show up having never sat in a room of 30 kids and listened to a teacher and learned how to work together. It's at that point in their lives a foreign concept, and so much of that time is spent just teaching them how to be in this learning environment and how to learn. I'm wondering — as a lower primary teacher, did you think of these skills you were teaching the students at this critical transition period as teaching executive functioning? And if not, when did that shift for you?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:07:54]:** Earlier in my career, I didn't know anything about executive functions except that I would hear the term thrown around in conversations about special education — that's really the only time I ever heard about executive functions. What I knew over five, ten, fifteen years was trial and error of having to be really explicit, more explicit than you would imagine, and just figuring out what works with my students. Not until I was later in my career did I start studying. I studied working memory intensely for a long time and started to realize that some of the problems I was seeing in class — for example, kids that are emerging readers (I teach emerging readers), kids that are having trouble blending sounds together — really, that was because they're working so hard, expending so much cognitive energy on getting those individual sounds correct, that by the time they go back to blend it into a word, their working memory has just gone haywire. The demand is too much.
Once I started studying, things started to make sense. I started to feel like, now I understand why this works — because I'm protecting their cognitive load, or I'm decreasing their likelihood of losing self-control. As a teacher, these are things we don't really learn in our pre-service training, but we figure them out over time. So what really happened was I started to realize: this is why this works, and this is why this doesn't. My study of executive functioning didn't come until a little bit later. We'll talk about this in a bit, I'm sure — working memory is one of the three core executive functions. Mitch and I will emphasize that they're not actually skills or behaviors; they are cognitive processes. But the behaviors that we would expect to see when it comes to navigating school are the things that are controlled by executive functions. Anything that requires self-control, self-regulation, discipline — all is sponsored by successful processing of executive functions.
**Seth [00:10:25]:** I love that you stumbled into the science of learning by doing local science. You called it trial and error, but that's what science is — you found out what worked through trying things that didn't work until things worked, and then that was the thing you went with. At a larger scale, that's just what the science of learning is.
But let's back up. As you mentioned here, let's talk about these three core executive functions. Mitch, I'm wondering if you can maybe just define executive functioning for our audience. What are these three core functions? And then, in the context of what you addressed in your first book — which was for grades three through 12 — as opposed to what you're addressing here in this second book, how do those core functions differ between those two broad age bands? Big question.
**Mitch Weathers [00:11:18]:** Yeah, that's a great question, and a big one. I'll try to keep it simple.
As Sarah mentioned, when we talk about executive functioning, we're talking about these cognitive or mental processes. You can pinpoint where they're happening in the brain. When you really dive into the science of executive functioning, it's fascinating. But what Sarah and I say all the time, and what we really aimed for in the book, is: so what does that mean to the practitioner — the teacher that's with 20 or 30 seven- and eight-year-olds tomorrow? They may not in the moment be like, "That's really fascinating cognitive…" Probably not. They need to see what Sarah just said: what we would hope or almost expect a student to demonstrate. Behaviors that stem from or are controlled by executive functioning.
The reason for the two books — there are two core categories, if you will, of executive functioning. The first domain that we address in this book are referred to as core executive functions: working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (sometimes referred to as shifting). We'll probably spend a little bit more time on working memory in this conversation. As a quick spot, it's an active place in our brain — sometimes synonymous with short-term memory, but it's not passive. It's not just a holding place. Some people refer to it as a mental sketchpad. But it's not long-term memory either. It's a finite resource that we really need to protect. So what Sarah was talking about — this cognitive load, and what's referred to as the extraneous load — if there's too much of that in the environment, then I'm just maxed out. That cognitive bandwidth isn't there.
Inhibition is: can I inhibit both what I'm feeling — like, I really want to go to recess, I want that snack, my teacher just brought out those donuts, I want to kick the kid that's next to me, or I have to go to the bathroom — can I inhibit that and stay focused? Or can I inhibit external stimuli? Maybe the classroom is a little bit too noisy for me, maybe there's a lot of visual stimuli, whatever might be happening.
And then cognitive flexibility, or shifting — correct me if you agree with this, Sarah — kind of the higher order of the three core. So: do I have the capacity and the ability to stay on task, to stay focused, when things don't go as planned? We know that really efficient learning environments have really predictable routines. This is really true in the primary years. But if something goes wrong — "this is what I'm supposed to do," and for whatever reason that day something goes wrong — can I shift? Can I be cognitively flexible?
Looking at those developmentally, in terms of human development, they're emerging in those younger years. There's an inflection point. Sarah and I were really intentional about the two books — both include grade three. So this book is K-through-three focused, and the first book is three through 12, because there's this kind of implicit expectation that happens somewhere around third and fourth grade, usually not talked about, where we just expect students to become more independent in their learning. There's an assumption that you can do that developmentally, in terms of executive function. In that upper elementary, middle, and into young adulthood, those higher-order executive functions — I'll just mention them that way and not define them, because that's the first book. That's all starting to happen in those years. But there's that crossover. And of course, with every learner there's variability in the process.
What I think is also really interesting: yes, this book was written for K through three educators, but I can tell you, as a secondary teacher, every upper elementary, middle, and high school teacher would benefit from the intentionality that comes from this. It's incredible, Seth.
**Seth [00:15:38]:** I mean, why stop there? Let's go to the office, right? I think some adults could benefit from some of this stuff.
**Mitch Weathers [00:15:42]:** Yeah — well, speaking of that, don't stop there. Some of our pre-readers — and this is for all the parents that might be tuning in — it really resonated with them from a parent perspective. So that's the core. These two domains: core and higher-order. The higher-order, this stuff — Sarah will get on her first-grade bandwagon here in just a moment — all the stuff that we take for granted as a ninth-grade teacher (I spent some time in middle school, but as a ninth-grade teacher) is built on this work that's happening in the primary years. And too often, I just don't think that's acknowledged or respected. The things that we can do — if this isn't happening, it's less likely it's going to happen there.
**Seth [00:16:31]:** Talking just basic independent-learner stuff: being able to show up at a certain time ready to learn, do your homework, keep your organized binder — things like that. Okay.
**Mitch Weathers [00:16:37]:** Yep — get to the class, get to your desk. When we look at the higher order, we can bring clarity and modeling, and we can reinforce that with routines. That's all the first book. It's not to say it's just like, "you can just do this," because we're talking to kids that are like — they can't do this — something with executive dysfunction. So I'm not saying you're just independent. But the expectation often is: you're here, you have your materials, you're in your seat, I'm going to give you multi-step directions, and then I'm going to say, "Go." I've seen videos from Sarah's class — she's like, "I just have to show you what it means to teach them how to put our chairs up at the end of the school day." It was a five-minute video, and I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I'm exhausted just watching this." The intentionality of every step of that process — we can somewhat take for granted.
**Seth [00:17:36]:** Yeah. I just advised my buddy the other day. He was giving a mini lesson in my daughter's jazz class — her band class. It was about the origin of jazz. He's from New Orleans, and he had this perspective that jazz could only have emerged with these three conditions being in the same place at the same time, and that's where we got this great American art form. He consulted with me as a teacher to give him some advice about how to deliver this. I was like, "You have to take this story that you're trying to tell them and break it up into all of its tiniest parts." There's an awareness of the story that you need that — I think as adults, when we tell stories, it's a start, middle, and end, and we don't realize that we're essentially building a structure. There's a literal structure to the story that we're building, and there are things that we implicitly understand need to go here and here and here, but we don't explicitly recognize that that's the case. Teachers, especially of younger kids, are forced to do that. If you want to be successful, you will try and you will fail until you do that, and then you will try and you will succeed.
I was smiling when you said third grade, because that's the grade I taught for the longest time, and I loved that grade level. I also understand that part of what is happening at that age of development is that they're also experiencing true empathy for the first time and able to take perspective. I wonder if that is part of what's going on here in terms of inhibition, cognitive flexibility — like, "I'm able to be adapted to this situation because I understand how my actions might impact other people." Sarah, do you have a sense of whether that's what's going on here?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:19:32]:** Yeah. So like Mitch mentioned, cognitive flexibility is sort of adapting, rolling with the punches when something unexpected happens or there's a change. But it's also acknowledging that other people think differently than I do. Other people like things that I don't like.
When you're very young, you kind of think, "This is what I want to do, and everybody else should want to do that, too — why wouldn't they?" So it's the maturation that happens of, "Everyone has their own — it's that theory of mind — I know what I think, but I also understand now that you have your own set of thoughts about how things should be and what you like and what you don't like."
Where that really manifests when you're a toddler — you see temper tantrums all over everything, because everything has to be this way. "You have to put this sock on first." We all remember being like, "I cannot believe that this is a problem." It's that rigidity. It's the lack of cognitive flexibility. So when the expectations aren't met at that very basic level, it throws them off.
In school, for the little ones, I always say, when I get a note from a substitute or I run into a substitute when I'm back, and they say, "You know, this one kept telling me that's not how she does it. They're not supposed to do it like this." When the kids are always correcting the substitute — because in their mind, this is how my teacher does it every day. This is a routine we follow. This is how it should be. "And you're wrong."
But also peer relationships. You have kids that will say, "I don't have anyone to play with," and then I observe, and they're being invited to do things, but they don't want to do it. So they're rejecting that offer, and then they're not making the connection that, "I'm not included — there's an attempt to include me, but I'm rejecting that, and that's why." They don't see — they're just not aware of that.
So yes, that cognitive flexibility — definitely, as they get older and they start to concede a little bit to their peers' wants, able to take turns, able to say, "Man, I really wanted that for dinner, and it's not happening, and we'll have it tomorrow," rather than it really throws off the whole night. So absolutely. This is the time when all three core are in explosive growth. When you think about the difference between a preschooler and a third grader, and their ability to just control what they say, control their body — all of that is blowing up at this time. So for us as teachers, it's really important to understand some of that, because then we can make choices around some of those parameters or say, "Hmm, this is probably beyond what I should be expecting," or, "This is going to make it harder if I make this choice in the classroom." So, third-grade teacher — I'd love to hear that. And yeah, for sure you see that maturity start to kick in a little bit.
**Seth [00:22:56]:** Yeah. I want to get into some of those choices that teachers make, but before we depart from there I just want to hit one more philosophical question, which is this idea of inhibition. I guess what it is is this balance between chaos and order — that with no inhibition, you would just have chaos everywhere. But with 100% inhibition, you have a bunch of automatons who are just doing whatever is being told for them to do, and then the machine runs forward. Somewhere in between, I think, is the American idea of the individual who functions within society. I wonder, at this young age, how we frame — or maybe toe the line between — the difference between inhibition for the sake of functional participation in society and inhibition for the sake of extinguishing creative fire.
**Mitch Weathers [00:24:07]:** I could too, but go ahead, Sarah.
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:24:08]:** I'm going to make this way simpler than I think what you're alluding to, and share that at this age, when we're talking about inhibition, we're talking about, "Can I not act on my impulses?" So I want to run across the room. I just feel like getting up and running across the room. Can I pause and know that I want to do that, but not do that, because that would be maladaptive? That would not be a good idea in the moment. That's not going to serve whatever I'm trying to get done. Or, "I really think that your shirt is terrible, but I'm going to know that I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to let those words come out. I'm going to be able to pause and inhibit that."
It's also, though, inhibition in the sense that, "I know I have to pay attention to you two right now, which means I'm going to filter out the other stuff." I have two cats that are whacking at my foot right now. I'm wondering if my daughters are doing their homework. But I'm able to prioritize, and I'm able to direct my attention here, because I can inhibit those other thoughts.
So we're not saying politically, or you can't share your opinion, or you have no agency. We're saying at a very basic level: you control some of your cognitive reflexes or desires. Are you able to discriminate what you need to pay attention to in the moment? Or are you driving down the road and you cannot stop looking at your phone? Because these three core are relevant for everybody, for adults and children.
That's really what it would look like, what we're talking about. We're not talking about compliance versus freedom. We're talking about: can you unpack your backpack without stopping to stare out the hallway for three minutes? So, inhibition in that sense.
**Seth [00:26:04]:** But — if I can just push back a little bit — what if that's what I want to do right now? What if what I want to do is stare into the hallway, and maybe I'm working out some kind of math problem in my head, or maybe I just need to regulate by staring at the hallway? Like you said, it's not going to serve whatever I want to get done if I'm running across the room — but what if I need to run across the room right now? It feels like something that — it goes back to that perspective-taking piece for me. It's like, maybe it's not going to serve what we need to get done, but did you really mean that it's not going to serve what I want to get done? Because what I want to get done is what I'm doing. You know what I mean?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:26:53]:** Right? And so there are things in life that require us to inhibit our impulses. I think that's a life lesson. We're in this academic setting. Our goal here is learning. And there are going to be some times when you cannot just take your clothes off because you want to. I mean, that's just not appropriate. So we do have to set up some boundaries. Mitch is laughing, but this is my real life. I think you guys think this is way more complicated than it is. You cannot just throw your scissors at me because you really don't like doing that, so I should allow it. So that's where we have some — we learn some civil respect in terms of: you're here to learn, and my job is to help you do that. In service of that goal, I'm going to help you. I'm going to understand that you're in a place where a lot of stuff that you want to do, you really want to act on, and it's hard for you sometimes — in particular, for preschool teachers. But I'm here to say, "Let's do that at recess," or, "Do that at home with mom and dad," or, "That might hurt someone."
I'm not here to physically restrain. That's a whole different thing. But I think we can all agree that there are some behaviors that are just publicly acceptable and safe and will support your learning. Versus, "I don't have any friends, and now I'm feeling terribly about myself, but it's because I can't understand compromise." So isn't it okay for me to support compromising — to help my students understand that a little bit, even though it might not be what they want? It's in service of helping them.
**Seth [00:29:23]:** Yeah. And I think there are kind of two things emerging there for me. One of them is this idea of how to exist in a space with other people. Up until this point, the students have learned how to exist in their own family unit, which has its own unique yet sometimes universal dynamics. And then you're suddenly thrown into a situation where you have to exist with 24 other people your age, plus a teacher, plus another teacher an hour from now. Simply being able to exist in that community space, I think, is part of what this executive functioning is for.
And then the other part of it is this larger long-term interest of, "These are the things that you need to do in order to be able to advance yourself and your skills to the point where you can eventually get what you're going to want later in life." When you have those young kids, you can see how so much of the focus would be on simply how to exist in another space with people. And then the closer you get to grade 12 at the end of the first book, you are actually coming up against that time when you're going to need to cash in the investment that you've made on yourself for the first 12 years of schooling, to actually get somewhere and do something with that.
Mitch, you said you could take a turn at answering this question as well — this inhibition question. Is there something you want to add to the discourse so far?
**Mitch Weathers [00:30:45]:** Yeah, I think it's a clarity conversation, too. I hear what you're saying very clearly. But for students, it's looking at — like Sarah had mentioned — this is the environment and the goal. This is why we're here. But it's also not saying, "You can't ever have that time to self-regulate, that zone-out, that whatever — that's not respected." It's just being very clear about the purpose of what we're doing, and then having other times in the day, in particular for young kids, that's not academic time. That's needed.
The way we approach this in the book is — and I hear Sarah saying this — it's not like you can just be like, "Self-regulate." It's not that. It's stepping back and looking at my learning environment, my instruction, and the routines, as we frame it in the book, and observing what we're all talking about through that executive functioning lens. How do I start to shape this environment? Are my routines contributing to executive dysfunction or off-task behavior or maladaptive behavior? Or maybe they're not — maybe they're promoting on-task. That's the lens where we want teachers, as well as parents, to look for our youngest learners.
It's similar to what you just said: "I just want to stare out into the hallway for three minutes." Well, if you stare out into the hallway for three minutes, then we have this routine and we're doing this — but it's also: okay, now we're transitioning to the carpet, and we're going to do this, and Sarah's like, "I have one kid that's just still staring out the window. We just went over it. We know exactly what we're doing. It's the same routine, and we're trying to move collectively here."
So we want to be very clear that it's not a deficit lens — like, "What that kid can't do." It's the curiosity of, "What's going on there? And is there anything I can do with my environment, my instruction, my routines, that might lead to better executive functioning?" Or might it be — and we can talk about tier one, tier two, and tier three — might it be something where, "Let's explore that further and see if there's a more intensive intervention or adjustments or things that need to be made to help that student"? Students being clear about what they're in school for, even in our youngest years, is important.
**Seth [00:33:26] *(approx)*:** Sure. Yeah. There has to be a connection to purpose, right? Otherwise, what are we doing? At least it speaks to intrinsic motivation. So I'm hearing a lot of things — providing non-academic time, explicit instructions, breaking things down into their parts. You mentioned instructions and routines, and identifying whether or not those are promoting executive function or dysfunction. Sarah, I'm hoping you can give our listeners either a framework or some kind of understanding of how they can recognize if their instructions and routines are promoting executive dysfunction or function. Is it about a sort of understood set of these instructions and routines that work for everybody, or are you looking for specific things within your students?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:34:15] *(approx)*:** Well, in the classroom, depending on — we kind of break it down, Mitch and I, in the book into three different categories: your routines, your instruction, and then your physical environment.
In terms of routines — I don't have to tell any primary teacher that they need routines. This is it for us. We know this. But when you understand a little bit about executive functions, you can design your routines very strategically so that they help to protect what our students bring with them: their ability to remember, their ability to shift tasks quickly, and their ability to pay attention.
Something specific would be: during instruction, the first thing I do is tell them what they should be paying attention to — like where to look. That is something that a lot of us take for granted. You think, "I start talking, they're going to engage with me, they're going to look at what I'm pointing to," or converse with me. But that is not a given. So having a routine where, when you sit down and you're ready to teach, you have a cue. Right away, they know — "We're looking at the board right now," or, "You're going to be looking at me," or, "You're going to be looking at your neighbor." Being very explicit about that to reduce any kind of ambiguity.
Routine-wise, a lot of us in these young grades — you guys take it for granted, because you say, "Just write the directions on the paper, write the directions on the board." And I'm like, "Well, that's great, but my kids can't read." A lot of us in the lower grades will have visuals, but be careful about where you put those visuals. When we have kids that are working independently at their seat, and we say, "Well, I put the pencil and the timer on the board" — think about what you're asking of your students in that moment. You're asking them to have the wherewithal to realize that they don't know what to do, and then they're visually scanning, which depletes working memory, trying to figure out, "Where do I look to figure this out? How do I know what I should be doing next?"
So what can you do to mitigate some of that? You have them do one thing at a time. You don't say, "Here's the five things we're going to do. If you forget, look on the board." You say, "We're going to do this one thing. Now go do that and then stop." Or, if they can handle it, two things — certainly, if it's something new, one at a time. Because if you give them several items to remember (and this goes for content or procedural), not only are they trying to remember what it is — the meat of what you're asking them to do — they're also trying to remember how to do it. What do I need? What are the steps to complete this activity? So it's navigating the task in addition to understanding the content of the task. And we take that for granted, but you could think about: if I gave you something totally unfamiliar — if I gave you a sewing machine, and (assuming, Seth, that you're not an avid sewer; I'll make that assumption) and then gave you five steps, you'd be like, "I don't even know how this thing works. And now you're asking me to remember what you showed me how to do. Oh, and I have to remember to do it in this order." That's a lot of cognitive load for you to manage. But if I gave you one thing at a time, you can manage that.
Environmentally, it looks like being very strategic about where you're putting visual stimuli. If it's a reference, make sure that it's close enough where your students don't have to look up from their task and be scanning, and trying to find something that potentially they don't know what it looks like — and now they're trying to find it amongst a bunch of other input.
It looks like being careful about where you put your decorations, your signs, your "all welcome here" — all of that stuff that makes our rooms inviting and warm but can potentially detract from where we want our kids to pay attention. So if I'm teaching, and I'm reading a story, and I really want my kids to be looking at the illustrations and thinking about what's happening in the story, and I bought a new STEM set for inside recess and it's right on the counter next to me — that's really cruel of me to say, "No, you have to pay attention here, but I'm just going to leave this right here. Don't look at it and don't think about it." So it's just being mindful of: what have I done or set up that might be deriding their ability to use whatever executive functions that they have in the moment? And even acoustically — if you like to play music, play instrumental music, because we are wired to tune to language. So if you have music with language on, you are pulling your kids. They have to work to not listen to that language, even if it's a foreign language.
**Seth [00:39:55] *(approx)*:** What I think is super interesting about this in the context of this podcast — it's called Make It Mindful. We talk a lot about the extra amount of noticing and awareness that you can bring to some of the processes that you are performing in front of the classroom and some of the learning processes that the students are doing. And what you've outlined here — I was going to ask the question, like, you kept talking about things that we take for granted. And those are the things that are hardest to notice — because we're taking them for granted. If we weren't taking them for granted, we'd notice them. But it takes this essential beat of, "Let me practice awareness in general, let me practice noticing in general," and then I can start to see some of these ways that my students might be seeing the world. Because the way that they see the world is one that is much more intrinsic, right? There's a basic human experience to it that is more aware of what is happening around you.
But I guess I will ask the question: for people who maybe have a mindfulness practice, maybe are practicing that noticing, is there a way that you go about understanding exactly how to notice the things that you take for granted, that are the things that you need to break down into smaller parts and communicate them to your students?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:41:40] *(approx)*:** I mean, I think typically it's trial and error. Over time you come to realize, "I can't just tell them to do this. They don't know how to do that. I can't just say, 'Line up.'" These things that I would imagine that they can do, that feel like something a child should be able to do — because I've forgotten what it's like to be a child most of the time — like you said, I take for granted, and I have to take a step back and say, "I'm leaving a lot of gray area here, and that's why chaos is ensuing. That's why there's confusion. That's why they're fighting over, 'We're going to stand here,' because I have not been explicit about, 'This is how we line up. This is how you go to the bathroom. Oh, you need a tissue? Okay, here's what we do.'"
Understanding a little bit about executive functions — I think you said it's another perspective — Mitch and I often say it's another lens that really can professionalize your ability to anticipate. "This is going to be a choke point here. I feel like, if I do this lesson as it's laid out, that's going to be way too much for them to manage." So anticipating, "I need to pause here," or, "I need to teach this much, and then we'll do half of the independent activity, and then we'll come back." Or understanding what your students are going through developmentally — and maybe that it's not as easy for them to control their desire to shout something, or get along with a peer, or be able to follow a basic sequence of steps.
Just understanding that, you already have a leg up. I'd like to think that in the book, this is all empirically sound and very technical — we made a huge effort to say, "This is not what teachers care about." We want to say, "Here are the brass tacks of what you should know," and we're not going to tell you what to do. We'll give you examples to help you contextualize some of the information, but it's really to say, "Now use this to make decisions in the classroom based on your students, based on what you teach." It's tier one. So absolutely, it will help you be more mindful in terms of anticipation, and in terms of even just understanding when things are going wrong — instead of just assuming, "Okay, there's a deficit with decoding," or, "There's a problem with…" Maybe there's some sort of learning behavior that is not fully developed that we need to address instead.
**Mitch Weathers [00:44:00] *(approx)*:** Seth, I want to jump in here. It's back to what you had said — that iterative process of science. Oftentimes, we're all teachers here, and we've probably — I know Sarah and I have lived this experience, and Seth, I'm just going to assume you have — where it is over years where you start to figure these things out. What Sarah and I get curious about is — either in the intro or the first chapter, Sarah, if you remember — what if you didn't have to take five years or ten years? What if some of this you could begin to understand and see the spaces differently as a result of reading this book? That's, I would say, one of the big hopes that Sarah and I have for any educator or parent who picks it up and reads it.
**Seth [00:44:50] *(approx)*:** So speaking of the book — where can our listeners find that? Where should they go to buy it?
**Mitch Weathers [00:44:58] *(approx)*:** Corwin is our publisher. They have it. Free shipping anywhere in the lower 48, I believe. And of course, Amazon. We could give you some other links that are available. Those are the two main channels. Through my website, Organized Binder, it's also for sale. It's on pre-order now. It's due out in April.
**Seth [00:45:20] *(approx)*:** Awesome. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes. Otherwise, thank you both so much for being here today. Really appreciate this conversation, and the takeaways for parents, for teachers, anyone working with young kids and trying to get them to start to understand how to exist in this world with each other, and with the idea that we have these long-term goals that require certain things of us, even at these young ages.
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## [OUTRO — recorded separately]
**Seth [00:45:55] *(approx)*:** For our listeners, I'll put the links in the show notes to Mitch and Sarah's new book, *Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start*, as well as Sarah's website and Mitch's work at Organized Binder. As always, if you'd like to support the podcast, the simplest way is to follow the show, leave a rating or a review, or send this episode to one educator or parent who would get value from it. Thank you, as always, to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And as a reminder: if you want to bring positive change to education, you must first make it mindful. See you next time.
**Guests:** Mitch Weathers and Dr. Sarah Oberle
**Topic:** Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom
**Editor:** Lucas Salazar
*Timestamps marked (approx) are estimates after editorial cuts and the addition of intro/outro.*
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## [INTRO — recorded separately]
**Seth [00:00:00]:** Support for Make It Mindful is brought to you by World Savvy, partnering with K-12 schools, districts, and community leaders to prepare youth to thrive in a complex, interconnected world. Make It Mindful is proud to feature Svitlo School, empowering the future social, political, and business leaders of Ukraine to become confident global citizens.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast exploring how students learn, who they're becoming, and how global experiences, human development, and emerging technologies impact teaching. I'm Seth Fleischauer, former classroom teacher and founder of Banyan Global Learning. Today I welcome back to the show Mitch Weathers, along with his co-author, Dr. Sarah Oberle, to discuss executive functioning for early primary learners.
Mitch is a former high school science teacher and the founder of Organized Binder, and he's the author of *Executive Functions for Every Classroom*, which focuses on grades three through 12. For his new book, he is joined by Dr. Sarah Oberle, a veteran first-grade teacher and a science of learning practitioner, to focus specifically on our youngest learners. The book is called *Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start*.
In this episode, we translate executive function into real classroom reality for K through three. We talk about what self-regulation actually looks like in a room full of five-, six-, and seven-year-olds, why "just follow directions" is often an impossible task, and how small choices — your routines, your instructions, and even the physical setup of your room — can either support kids' attention and working memory or quietly overload them.
This episode is best for teachers in the primary grades, coaches of primary teachers, and parents trying to understand why school is so demanding for young kids and how they can support learning at home.
**Seth [00:02:15] *(approx)*:** This episode of Make It Mindful is brought to you by Banyan Global Learning. At Banyan Global Learning, we design structured live experiences that connect classrooms to the world. Global Learning Live is our four-week journey in global competence. Classrooms join an international cohort of three to four schools and meet weekly during regular class time for facilitated 45-minute sessions built around a compelling big question. Students explore global contexts through live virtual field trips, exchange ideas with international peers, and create a final digital artifact that expresses identity, perspective, and connection across cultures. If you're curious about what this could look like in your classroom or school, we'd love to talk. You can find us at banyangloballearning.com.
And now here's my conversation with Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle.
---
## CONVERSATION
**Seth [00:03:15] *(approx)*:** Mitch, welcome back to the podcast. And Sarah, welcome to the podcast.
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:03:20]:** Thank you.
**Mitch Weathers [00:03:21]:** Thanks for having us, Seth.
**Seth [00:03:23]:** Yeah, super excited to dive into this conversation here today. Let's start by just talking about this new big project that you guys have out. You wrote a book. Why this book? Why now?
**Mitch Weathers [00:03:39]:** I'll take that first part. Just piggybacking on our previous conversation, Seth — in 2024 I had written my first book focused on executive functions in grades three through 12. It's been wonderfully well-received, and that's been incredible. But the consistent feedback, almost from publication date, was from primary teachers — the teachers working with our youngest students. They were a little perplexed, because when you say "executive functions" and you do a book study or a PD, it was really interesting: if it was a district-level or county-level engagement, it was all the primary teachers, K through three, that were the first to sign up, just because they saw the topic. And then the book — specifically my first book — on the cover, one of the subtitles says grades three through 12. Those are the grade bands that I felt I could really speak to as an expert from my experience. I'm not a primary teacher, and I really wanted to make that clear. But I just kept receiving that feedback. I'd have a few focus groups with the teachers who would sign up, and they'd say, "Hey, can we just meet separately and talk to me?" And overwhelmingly, it was not that there are no takeaways from this book — it's that it's not directly applicable to what we do. It's not super practical. And that just stuck with me.
Then I met Sarah Oberle, just on the heels of finishing her doctorate work. As we got to know each other, both as friends and professionals, I was like, "I think we have to figure out this book. It has to be out there in the world. There's a need for it. And I think it's a co-authored effort." And here we are two years later talking to you. Did I cover it, Sarah?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:05:43]:** Yeah, I think you said it well. I'll speak as a member of the audience for the book. I felt like this is something that we desperately need in the field, and we need it for just us — because you cannot give us material that's K-12. It just doesn't work in our context, and very often that's what we are given. As a classroom teacher, I felt like this is a huge component of our day. Before we can jump into learning, we have to deal with these other things that don't feel tangible and that you don't really get trained on. But you find out that the kids aren't paying attention, or they're walking around, or they just don't understand how to maneuver in a classroom. So I felt like it was important to write a book that is specifically for these foundational grades, because what we're teaching in these grades is so critical for academic success moving forward.
**Seth [00:06:53]:** And Sarah — last time I talked to Mitch, he called it "studentness." That was the word he used to describe basically how to do school. And obviously that's a huge component of these early grades, because the students show up having never sat in a room of 30 kids and listened to a teacher and learned how to work together. It's at that point in their lives a foreign concept, and so much of that time is spent just teaching them how to be in this learning environment and how to learn. I'm wondering — as a lower primary teacher, did you think of these skills you were teaching the students at this critical transition period as teaching executive functioning? And if not, when did that shift for you?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:07:54]:** Earlier in my career, I didn't know anything about executive functions except that I would hear the term thrown around in conversations about special education — that's really the only time I ever heard about executive functions. What I knew over five, ten, fifteen years was trial and error of having to be really explicit, more explicit than you would imagine, and just figuring out what works with my students. Not until I was later in my career did I start studying. I studied working memory intensely for a long time and started to realize that some of the problems I was seeing in class — for example, kids that are emerging readers (I teach emerging readers), kids that are having trouble blending sounds together — really, that was because they're working so hard, expending so much cognitive energy on getting those individual sounds correct, that by the time they go back to blend it into a word, their working memory has just gone haywire. The demand is too much.
Once I started studying, things started to make sense. I started to feel like, now I understand why this works — because I'm protecting their cognitive load, or I'm decreasing their likelihood of losing self-control. As a teacher, these are things we don't really learn in our pre-service training, but we figure them out over time. So what really happened was I started to realize: this is why this works, and this is why this doesn't. My study of executive functioning didn't come until a little bit later. We'll talk about this in a bit, I'm sure — working memory is one of the three core executive functions. Mitch and I will emphasize that they're not actually skills or behaviors; they are cognitive processes. But the behaviors that we would expect to see when it comes to navigating school are the things that are controlled by executive functions. Anything that requires self-control, self-regulation, discipline — all is sponsored by successful processing of executive functions.
**Seth [00:10:25]:** I love that you stumbled into the science of learning by doing local science. You called it trial and error, but that's what science is — you found out what worked through trying things that didn't work until things worked, and then that was the thing you went with. At a larger scale, that's just what the science of learning is.
But let's back up. As you mentioned here, let's talk about these three core executive functions. Mitch, I'm wondering if you can maybe just define executive functioning for our audience. What are these three core functions? And then, in the context of what you addressed in your first book — which was for grades three through 12 — as opposed to what you're addressing here in this second book, how do those core functions differ between those two broad age bands? Big question.
**Mitch Weathers [00:11:18]:** Yeah, that's a great question, and a big one. I'll try to keep it simple.
As Sarah mentioned, when we talk about executive functioning, we're talking about these cognitive or mental processes. You can pinpoint where they're happening in the brain. When you really dive into the science of executive functioning, it's fascinating. But what Sarah and I say all the time, and what we really aimed for in the book, is: so what does that mean to the practitioner — the teacher that's with 20 or 30 seven- and eight-year-olds tomorrow? They may not in the moment be like, "That's really fascinating cognitive…" Probably not. They need to see what Sarah just said: what we would hope or almost expect a student to demonstrate. Behaviors that stem from or are controlled by executive functioning.
The reason for the two books — there are two core categories, if you will, of executive functioning. The first domain that we address in this book are referred to as core executive functions: working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (sometimes referred to as shifting). We'll probably spend a little bit more time on working memory in this conversation. As a quick spot, it's an active place in our brain — sometimes synonymous with short-term memory, but it's not passive. It's not just a holding place. Some people refer to it as a mental sketchpad. But it's not long-term memory either. It's a finite resource that we really need to protect. So what Sarah was talking about — this cognitive load, and what's referred to as the extraneous load — if there's too much of that in the environment, then I'm just maxed out. That cognitive bandwidth isn't there.
Inhibition is: can I inhibit both what I'm feeling — like, I really want to go to recess, I want that snack, my teacher just brought out those donuts, I want to kick the kid that's next to me, or I have to go to the bathroom — can I inhibit that and stay focused? Or can I inhibit external stimuli? Maybe the classroom is a little bit too noisy for me, maybe there's a lot of visual stimuli, whatever might be happening.
And then cognitive flexibility, or shifting — correct me if you agree with this, Sarah — kind of the higher order of the three core. So: do I have the capacity and the ability to stay on task, to stay focused, when things don't go as planned? We know that really efficient learning environments have really predictable routines. This is really true in the primary years. But if something goes wrong — "this is what I'm supposed to do," and for whatever reason that day something goes wrong — can I shift? Can I be cognitively flexible?
Looking at those developmentally, in terms of human development, they're emerging in those younger years. There's an inflection point. Sarah and I were really intentional about the two books — both include grade three. So this book is K-through-three focused, and the first book is three through 12, because there's this kind of implicit expectation that happens somewhere around third and fourth grade, usually not talked about, where we just expect students to become more independent in their learning. There's an assumption that you can do that developmentally, in terms of executive function. In that upper elementary, middle, and into young adulthood, those higher-order executive functions — I'll just mention them that way and not define them, because that's the first book. That's all starting to happen in those years. But there's that crossover. And of course, with every learner there's variability in the process.
What I think is also really interesting: yes, this book was written for K through three educators, but I can tell you, as a secondary teacher, every upper elementary, middle, and high school teacher would benefit from the intentionality that comes from this. It's incredible, Seth.
**Seth [00:15:38]:** I mean, why stop there? Let's go to the office, right? I think some adults could benefit from some of this stuff.
**Mitch Weathers [00:15:42]:** Yeah — well, speaking of that, don't stop there. Some of our pre-readers — and this is for all the parents that might be tuning in — it really resonated with them from a parent perspective. So that's the core. These two domains: core and higher-order. The higher-order, this stuff — Sarah will get on her first-grade bandwagon here in just a moment — all the stuff that we take for granted as a ninth-grade teacher (I spent some time in middle school, but as a ninth-grade teacher) is built on this work that's happening in the primary years. And too often, I just don't think that's acknowledged or respected. The things that we can do — if this isn't happening, it's less likely it's going to happen there.
**Seth [00:16:31]:** Talking just basic independent-learner stuff: being able to show up at a certain time ready to learn, do your homework, keep your organized binder — things like that. Okay.
**Mitch Weathers [00:16:37]:** Yep — get to the class, get to your desk. When we look at the higher order, we can bring clarity and modeling, and we can reinforce that with routines. That's all the first book. It's not to say it's just like, "you can just do this," because we're talking to kids that are like — they can't do this — something with executive dysfunction. So I'm not saying you're just independent. But the expectation often is: you're here, you have your materials, you're in your seat, I'm going to give you multi-step directions, and then I'm going to say, "Go." I've seen videos from Sarah's class — she's like, "I just have to show you what it means to teach them how to put our chairs up at the end of the school day." It was a five-minute video, and I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I'm exhausted just watching this." The intentionality of every step of that process — we can somewhat take for granted.
**Seth [00:17:36]:** Yeah. I just advised my buddy the other day. He was giving a mini lesson in my daughter's jazz class — her band class. It was about the origin of jazz. He's from New Orleans, and he had this perspective that jazz could only have emerged with these three conditions being in the same place at the same time, and that's where we got this great American art form. He consulted with me as a teacher to give him some advice about how to deliver this. I was like, "You have to take this story that you're trying to tell them and break it up into all of its tiniest parts." There's an awareness of the story that you need that — I think as adults, when we tell stories, it's a start, middle, and end, and we don't realize that we're essentially building a structure. There's a literal structure to the story that we're building, and there are things that we implicitly understand need to go here and here and here, but we don't explicitly recognize that that's the case. Teachers, especially of younger kids, are forced to do that. If you want to be successful, you will try and you will fail until you do that, and then you will try and you will succeed.
I was smiling when you said third grade, because that's the grade I taught for the longest time, and I loved that grade level. I also understand that part of what is happening at that age of development is that they're also experiencing true empathy for the first time and able to take perspective. I wonder if that is part of what's going on here in terms of inhibition, cognitive flexibility — like, "I'm able to be adapted to this situation because I understand how my actions might impact other people." Sarah, do you have a sense of whether that's what's going on here?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:19:32]:** Yeah. So like Mitch mentioned, cognitive flexibility is sort of adapting, rolling with the punches when something unexpected happens or there's a change. But it's also acknowledging that other people think differently than I do. Other people like things that I don't like.
When you're very young, you kind of think, "This is what I want to do, and everybody else should want to do that, too — why wouldn't they?" So it's the maturation that happens of, "Everyone has their own — it's that theory of mind — I know what I think, but I also understand now that you have your own set of thoughts about how things should be and what you like and what you don't like."
Where that really manifests when you're a toddler — you see temper tantrums all over everything, because everything has to be this way. "You have to put this sock on first." We all remember being like, "I cannot believe that this is a problem." It's that rigidity. It's the lack of cognitive flexibility. So when the expectations aren't met at that very basic level, it throws them off.
In school, for the little ones, I always say, when I get a note from a substitute or I run into a substitute when I'm back, and they say, "You know, this one kept telling me that's not how she does it. They're not supposed to do it like this." When the kids are always correcting the substitute — because in their mind, this is how my teacher does it every day. This is a routine we follow. This is how it should be. "And you're wrong."
But also peer relationships. You have kids that will say, "I don't have anyone to play with," and then I observe, and they're being invited to do things, but they don't want to do it. So they're rejecting that offer, and then they're not making the connection that, "I'm not included — there's an attempt to include me, but I'm rejecting that, and that's why." They don't see — they're just not aware of that.
So yes, that cognitive flexibility — definitely, as they get older and they start to concede a little bit to their peers' wants, able to take turns, able to say, "Man, I really wanted that for dinner, and it's not happening, and we'll have it tomorrow," rather than it really throws off the whole night. So absolutely. This is the time when all three core are in explosive growth. When you think about the difference between a preschooler and a third grader, and their ability to just control what they say, control their body — all of that is blowing up at this time. So for us as teachers, it's really important to understand some of that, because then we can make choices around some of those parameters or say, "Hmm, this is probably beyond what I should be expecting," or, "This is going to make it harder if I make this choice in the classroom." So, third-grade teacher — I'd love to hear that. And yeah, for sure you see that maturity start to kick in a little bit.
**Seth [00:22:56]:** Yeah. I want to get into some of those choices that teachers make, but before we depart from there I just want to hit one more philosophical question, which is this idea of inhibition. I guess what it is is this balance between chaos and order — that with no inhibition, you would just have chaos everywhere. But with 100% inhibition, you have a bunch of automatons who are just doing whatever is being told for them to do, and then the machine runs forward. Somewhere in between, I think, is the American idea of the individual who functions within society. I wonder, at this young age, how we frame — or maybe toe the line between — the difference between inhibition for the sake of functional participation in society and inhibition for the sake of extinguishing creative fire.
**Mitch Weathers [00:24:07]:** I could too, but go ahead, Sarah.
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:24:08]:** I'm going to make this way simpler than I think what you're alluding to, and share that at this age, when we're talking about inhibition, we're talking about, "Can I not act on my impulses?" So I want to run across the room. I just feel like getting up and running across the room. Can I pause and know that I want to do that, but not do that, because that would be maladaptive? That would not be a good idea in the moment. That's not going to serve whatever I'm trying to get done. Or, "I really think that your shirt is terrible, but I'm going to know that I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to let those words come out. I'm going to be able to pause and inhibit that."
It's also, though, inhibition in the sense that, "I know I have to pay attention to you two right now, which means I'm going to filter out the other stuff." I have two cats that are whacking at my foot right now. I'm wondering if my daughters are doing their homework. But I'm able to prioritize, and I'm able to direct my attention here, because I can inhibit those other thoughts.
So we're not saying politically, or you can't share your opinion, or you have no agency. We're saying at a very basic level: you control some of your cognitive reflexes or desires. Are you able to discriminate what you need to pay attention to in the moment? Or are you driving down the road and you cannot stop looking at your phone? Because these three core are relevant for everybody, for adults and children.
That's really what it would look like, what we're talking about. We're not talking about compliance versus freedom. We're talking about: can you unpack your backpack without stopping to stare out the hallway for three minutes? So, inhibition in that sense.
**Seth [00:26:04]:** But — if I can just push back a little bit — what if that's what I want to do right now? What if what I want to do is stare into the hallway, and maybe I'm working out some kind of math problem in my head, or maybe I just need to regulate by staring at the hallway? Like you said, it's not going to serve whatever I want to get done if I'm running across the room — but what if I need to run across the room right now? It feels like something that — it goes back to that perspective-taking piece for me. It's like, maybe it's not going to serve what we need to get done, but did you really mean that it's not going to serve what I want to get done? Because what I want to get done is what I'm doing. You know what I mean?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:26:53]:** Right? And so there are things in life that require us to inhibit our impulses. I think that's a life lesson. We're in this academic setting. Our goal here is learning. And there are going to be some times when you cannot just take your clothes off because you want to. I mean, that's just not appropriate. So we do have to set up some boundaries. Mitch is laughing, but this is my real life. I think you guys think this is way more complicated than it is. You cannot just throw your scissors at me because you really don't like doing that, so I should allow it. So that's where we have some — we learn some civil respect in terms of: you're here to learn, and my job is to help you do that. In service of that goal, I'm going to help you. I'm going to understand that you're in a place where a lot of stuff that you want to do, you really want to act on, and it's hard for you sometimes — in particular, for preschool teachers. But I'm here to say, "Let's do that at recess," or, "Do that at home with mom and dad," or, "That might hurt someone."
I'm not here to physically restrain. That's a whole different thing. But I think we can all agree that there are some behaviors that are just publicly acceptable and safe and will support your learning. Versus, "I don't have any friends, and now I'm feeling terribly about myself, but it's because I can't understand compromise." So isn't it okay for me to support compromising — to help my students understand that a little bit, even though it might not be what they want? It's in service of helping them.
**Seth [00:29:23]:** Yeah. And I think there are kind of two things emerging there for me. One of them is this idea of how to exist in a space with other people. Up until this point, the students have learned how to exist in their own family unit, which has its own unique yet sometimes universal dynamics. And then you're suddenly thrown into a situation where you have to exist with 24 other people your age, plus a teacher, plus another teacher an hour from now. Simply being able to exist in that community space, I think, is part of what this executive functioning is for.
And then the other part of it is this larger long-term interest of, "These are the things that you need to do in order to be able to advance yourself and your skills to the point where you can eventually get what you're going to want later in life." When you have those young kids, you can see how so much of the focus would be on simply how to exist in another space with people. And then the closer you get to grade 12 at the end of the first book, you are actually coming up against that time when you're going to need to cash in the investment that you've made on yourself for the first 12 years of schooling, to actually get somewhere and do something with that.
Mitch, you said you could take a turn at answering this question as well — this inhibition question. Is there something you want to add to the discourse so far?
**Mitch Weathers [00:30:45]:** Yeah, I think it's a clarity conversation, too. I hear what you're saying very clearly. But for students, it's looking at — like Sarah had mentioned — this is the environment and the goal. This is why we're here. But it's also not saying, "You can't ever have that time to self-regulate, that zone-out, that whatever — that's not respected." It's just being very clear about the purpose of what we're doing, and then having other times in the day, in particular for young kids, that's not academic time. That's needed.
The way we approach this in the book is — and I hear Sarah saying this — it's not like you can just be like, "Self-regulate." It's not that. It's stepping back and looking at my learning environment, my instruction, and the routines, as we frame it in the book, and observing what we're all talking about through that executive functioning lens. How do I start to shape this environment? Are my routines contributing to executive dysfunction or off-task behavior or maladaptive behavior? Or maybe they're not — maybe they're promoting on-task. That's the lens where we want teachers, as well as parents, to look for our youngest learners.
It's similar to what you just said: "I just want to stare out into the hallway for three minutes." Well, if you stare out into the hallway for three minutes, then we have this routine and we're doing this — but it's also: okay, now we're transitioning to the carpet, and we're going to do this, and Sarah's like, "I have one kid that's just still staring out the window. We just went over it. We know exactly what we're doing. It's the same routine, and we're trying to move collectively here."
So we want to be very clear that it's not a deficit lens — like, "What that kid can't do." It's the curiosity of, "What's going on there? And is there anything I can do with my environment, my instruction, my routines, that might lead to better executive functioning?" Or might it be — and we can talk about tier one, tier two, and tier three — might it be something where, "Let's explore that further and see if there's a more intensive intervention or adjustments or things that need to be made to help that student"? Students being clear about what they're in school for, even in our youngest years, is important.
**Seth [00:33:26] *(approx)*:** Sure. Yeah. There has to be a connection to purpose, right? Otherwise, what are we doing? At least it speaks to intrinsic motivation. So I'm hearing a lot of things — providing non-academic time, explicit instructions, breaking things down into their parts. You mentioned instructions and routines, and identifying whether or not those are promoting executive function or dysfunction. Sarah, I'm hoping you can give our listeners either a framework or some kind of understanding of how they can recognize if their instructions and routines are promoting executive dysfunction or function. Is it about a sort of understood set of these instructions and routines that work for everybody, or are you looking for specific things within your students?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:34:15] *(approx)*:** Well, in the classroom, depending on — we kind of break it down, Mitch and I, in the book into three different categories: your routines, your instruction, and then your physical environment.
In terms of routines — I don't have to tell any primary teacher that they need routines. This is it for us. We know this. But when you understand a little bit about executive functions, you can design your routines very strategically so that they help to protect what our students bring with them: their ability to remember, their ability to shift tasks quickly, and their ability to pay attention.
Something specific would be: during instruction, the first thing I do is tell them what they should be paying attention to — like where to look. That is something that a lot of us take for granted. You think, "I start talking, they're going to engage with me, they're going to look at what I'm pointing to," or converse with me. But that is not a given. So having a routine where, when you sit down and you're ready to teach, you have a cue. Right away, they know — "We're looking at the board right now," or, "You're going to be looking at me," or, "You're going to be looking at your neighbor." Being very explicit about that to reduce any kind of ambiguity.
Routine-wise, a lot of us in these young grades — you guys take it for granted, because you say, "Just write the directions on the paper, write the directions on the board." And I'm like, "Well, that's great, but my kids can't read." A lot of us in the lower grades will have visuals, but be careful about where you put those visuals. When we have kids that are working independently at their seat, and we say, "Well, I put the pencil and the timer on the board" — think about what you're asking of your students in that moment. You're asking them to have the wherewithal to realize that they don't know what to do, and then they're visually scanning, which depletes working memory, trying to figure out, "Where do I look to figure this out? How do I know what I should be doing next?"
So what can you do to mitigate some of that? You have them do one thing at a time. You don't say, "Here's the five things we're going to do. If you forget, look on the board." You say, "We're going to do this one thing. Now go do that and then stop." Or, if they can handle it, two things — certainly, if it's something new, one at a time. Because if you give them several items to remember (and this goes for content or procedural), not only are they trying to remember what it is — the meat of what you're asking them to do — they're also trying to remember how to do it. What do I need? What are the steps to complete this activity? So it's navigating the task in addition to understanding the content of the task. And we take that for granted, but you could think about: if I gave you something totally unfamiliar — if I gave you a sewing machine, and (assuming, Seth, that you're not an avid sewer; I'll make that assumption) and then gave you five steps, you'd be like, "I don't even know how this thing works. And now you're asking me to remember what you showed me how to do. Oh, and I have to remember to do it in this order." That's a lot of cognitive load for you to manage. But if I gave you one thing at a time, you can manage that.
Environmentally, it looks like being very strategic about where you're putting visual stimuli. If it's a reference, make sure that it's close enough where your students don't have to look up from their task and be scanning, and trying to find something that potentially they don't know what it looks like — and now they're trying to find it amongst a bunch of other input.
It looks like being careful about where you put your decorations, your signs, your "all welcome here" — all of that stuff that makes our rooms inviting and warm but can potentially detract from where we want our kids to pay attention. So if I'm teaching, and I'm reading a story, and I really want my kids to be looking at the illustrations and thinking about what's happening in the story, and I bought a new STEM set for inside recess and it's right on the counter next to me — that's really cruel of me to say, "No, you have to pay attention here, but I'm just going to leave this right here. Don't look at it and don't think about it." So it's just being mindful of: what have I done or set up that might be deriding their ability to use whatever executive functions that they have in the moment? And even acoustically — if you like to play music, play instrumental music, because we are wired to tune to language. So if you have music with language on, you are pulling your kids. They have to work to not listen to that language, even if it's a foreign language.
**Seth [00:39:55] *(approx)*:** What I think is super interesting about this in the context of this podcast — it's called Make It Mindful. We talk a lot about the extra amount of noticing and awareness that you can bring to some of the processes that you are performing in front of the classroom and some of the learning processes that the students are doing. And what you've outlined here — I was going to ask the question, like, you kept talking about things that we take for granted. And those are the things that are hardest to notice — because we're taking them for granted. If we weren't taking them for granted, we'd notice them. But it takes this essential beat of, "Let me practice awareness in general, let me practice noticing in general," and then I can start to see some of these ways that my students might be seeing the world. Because the way that they see the world is one that is much more intrinsic, right? There's a basic human experience to it that is more aware of what is happening around you.
But I guess I will ask the question: for people who maybe have a mindfulness practice, maybe are practicing that noticing, is there a way that you go about understanding exactly how to notice the things that you take for granted, that are the things that you need to break down into smaller parts and communicate them to your students?
**Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. [00:41:40] *(approx)*:** I mean, I think typically it's trial and error. Over time you come to realize, "I can't just tell them to do this. They don't know how to do that. I can't just say, 'Line up.'" These things that I would imagine that they can do, that feel like something a child should be able to do — because I've forgotten what it's like to be a child most of the time — like you said, I take for granted, and I have to take a step back and say, "I'm leaving a lot of gray area here, and that's why chaos is ensuing. That's why there's confusion. That's why they're fighting over, 'We're going to stand here,' because I have not been explicit about, 'This is how we line up. This is how you go to the bathroom. Oh, you need a tissue? Okay, here's what we do.'"
Understanding a little bit about executive functions — I think you said it's another perspective — Mitch and I often say it's another lens that really can professionalize your ability to anticipate. "This is going to be a choke point here. I feel like, if I do this lesson as it's laid out, that's going to be way too much for them to manage." So anticipating, "I need to pause here," or, "I need to teach this much, and then we'll do half of the independent activity, and then we'll come back." Or understanding what your students are going through developmentally — and maybe that it's not as easy for them to control their desire to shout something, or get along with a peer, or be able to follow a basic sequence of steps.
Just understanding that, you already have a leg up. I'd like to think that in the book, this is all empirically sound and very technical — we made a huge effort to say, "This is not what teachers care about." We want to say, "Here are the brass tacks of what you should know," and we're not going to tell you what to do. We'll give you examples to help you contextualize some of the information, but it's really to say, "Now use this to make decisions in the classroom based on your students, based on what you teach." It's tier one. So absolutely, it will help you be more mindful in terms of anticipation, and in terms of even just understanding when things are going wrong — instead of just assuming, "Okay, there's a deficit with decoding," or, "There's a problem with…" Maybe there's some sort of learning behavior that is not fully developed that we need to address instead.
**Mitch Weathers [00:44:00] *(approx)*:** Seth, I want to jump in here. It's back to what you had said — that iterative process of science. Oftentimes, we're all teachers here, and we've probably — I know Sarah and I have lived this experience, and Seth, I'm just going to assume you have — where it is over years where you start to figure these things out. What Sarah and I get curious about is — either in the intro or the first chapter, Sarah, if you remember — what if you didn't have to take five years or ten years? What if some of this you could begin to understand and see the spaces differently as a result of reading this book? That's, I would say, one of the big hopes that Sarah and I have for any educator or parent who picks it up and reads it.
**Seth [00:44:50] *(approx)*:** So speaking of the book — where can our listeners find that? Where should they go to buy it?
**Mitch Weathers [00:44:58] *(approx)*:** Corwin is our publisher. They have it. Free shipping anywhere in the lower 48, I believe. And of course, Amazon. We could give you some other links that are available. Those are the two main channels. Through my website, Organized Binder, it's also for sale. It's on pre-order now. It's due out in April.
**Seth [00:45:20] *(approx)*:** Awesome. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes. Otherwise, thank you both so much for being here today. Really appreciate this conversation, and the takeaways for parents, for teachers, anyone working with young kids and trying to get them to start to understand how to exist in this world with each other, and with the idea that we have these long-term goals that require certain things of us, even at these young ages.
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## [OUTRO — recorded separately]
**Seth [00:45:55] *(approx)*:** For our listeners, I'll put the links in the show notes to Mitch and Sarah's new book, *Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start*, as well as Sarah's website and Mitch's work at Organized Binder. As always, if you'd like to support the podcast, the simplest way is to follow the show, leave a rating or a review, or send this episode to one educator or parent who would get value from it. Thank you, as always, to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And as a reminder: if you want to bring positive change to education, you must first make it mindful. See you next time.
