Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Education

Seth (00:01.464)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast where we explore how to keep schools relevant by looking through the lens of mindfulness and asking the question, what's really worth paying attention to here? I'm your host, Seth Fleishour. In each episode, I interview educational change makers striving to understand what they do, why it works, and how it can lead to practical, transformative solutions for teaching. And this week, my guest is Mitch Weathers. Mitch, thank you for being here. Welcome.

Mitch Weathers (00:27.64)
Thanks Seth, I'm happy to be here. Looking forward to the conversation.

Seth (00:31.296)
Yeah, very much so. The Bee Podcast Network set us up and I've really enjoyed the few times that I've had to speak with you already and looking forward to this conversation talking about executive functioning. We're going to bring in some of the things that I've been noticing in my own kids and then relate that into the classroom. And as always, you know, bring it back to teaching and what our teachers out there can take pieces of and put tools into their tool belt.

But before we get there, Mitch, could you please introduce yourself?

Mitch Weathers (01:02.158)
Absolutely. Hi everybody. My name is Mitch Weathers. I am I guess first and foremost husband and dad of two daughters, 10 and 15. Historically, I'm a high school science teacher, ninth grade based in Northern California. I designed a program called Organized Binder many years ago, spun out of my own teaching practice that has now evolved into

An entity that I get the great pleasure of working with schools and K -12 in colleges around the US and internationally. And the newest event in my professional life is I published my first book in March of this year in 2024 called Executive Functions for Every Classroom. And I guess that's me excited to be here.

Seth (01:53.73)
Well, executive functions for every classroom sounds like you are the person to talk to about executive functioning. So happy that you're here. Let's start with that term. Mitch, what is executive functioning?

Mitch Weathers (02:04.684)
Yeah, that's a great place to start. then, know, Seth, there's a lot of kind of fancy, if you will, definitions about, you know, being able to set goals and manage your time and juggle multiple tasks and all these things. I always default to a term that a school made up that we worked, we've worked with now, gosh, for well over a decade. And when they first contacted OrganizedBinder,

on their own, they had this goal of developing student -ness in their students and were exploring like, what's that mean to develop student -ness? And it's funny, when I was first designing OrganizeBinder in my classroom, what I realized was like, told my students, like, you don't know how to do school. Like, I see, like you could be successful. And as I get to know you, even though you've struggled academically, there's something missing here.

Seth (02:53.985)
You

Mitch Weathers (03:02.114)
that no one, and this is the strange part about executive functioning skills, because I've never met a teacher or a parent that doesn't want young people to develop them, but historically they've kind of been left up to chance. And we can't make that mistake any longer. And so was like, you don't know, you don't know how to do this school thing. This is all the stuff, and I didn't have any language for it. I told them like, it kind of like is underneath, it's the foundation for what you're learning. It surrounds all the content, but.

If you can do these things and learn these skills and habits, you're going to be more successful. I, that term student is to me has always stuck when that school, shared that with me when I first went there, I'd be like, we're developing students. Like, that's it. Because in terms of when you mentioned like bringing it back to the classroom, executive functioning is really kind of this umbrella term and there's lots of kind of categories or verticals under that umbrella.

but honing in specifically on what influence or impacts this teaching and learning and setting up students for success. There's kind of that vertical, if you will. So I just personally like that term student -ness and specifically, like in my book or inherent organized binder, we're looking at goal setting, work flexing. I like to say flexing your working memory, planning and time management, organizational skills.

self -regulation and accountability. So I try to get very specific with what we say when we're talking about executive functioning in terms of the actual skills, but I like that term student -ness.

Seth (04:42.157)
Yeah, I like that too. to clarify, does that mean that there exist executive functioning skills out there in the world and there's a subset of those that are applicable to school and those are the ones that you focus on? Or are you dealing with the entirety of executive functioning just as it relates to school?

Mitch Weathers (05:01.696)
No, I would not say entirety because if we look at those six that I just listed, there's others that influence or have a positive impact on learning in the classroom or learning in any environment for that matter, like task initiation, task completion, being self -aware. We could list a bunch of stuff, but what I've found is that, for example,

let's look at task completion or task initiation. When a student learns to get and stay organized so they can find their stuff, when they learn to manage their time, so planning out time management, when they have a goal that's set and they're practicing goal setting, all these other things are influenced by that. So instead of having 25 different terms for these skills and habits, I've just found that that's six.

my work can really influence in ways, in positive ways, those others. So by no means all things executive function jammed into the classroom.

Seth (06:10.094)
Just the ones as, as a teacher that you found were sort of the most bang for your buck. These, these six skills. Yeah.

Mitch Weathers (06:15.168)
Yeah, and just most applicable for that environment.

Seth (06:19.01)
Awesome, so let's break these down a little bit. You mentioned the six skills, but tell me about them in relation to OrganizeBinder. What is this product, how does it work, why does it work? Break it down for us.

Mitch Weathers (06:34.53)
Yeah, that's a great question because when you look at executive functioning skills, one thing I'm absolutely convinced about is that they're actually not taught. So people will hear me say oftentimes like teaching executive functioning skills. Well, one of the first things I'll say if I am giving a talk or a keynote or something is that executive functioning skills aren't taught. They're best learned when students clearly see them modeled and they get daily practice.

employing them. So when we look at organized binder, like the physical materials, like the product you're saying, that's all about clarity and modeling. So there's a class sample and this binder becomes the, it is the tool for students to participate and engage in a predictable daily routine. And it's color coded. So each step of the routine, there's a different place we are in the binder.

And that for me, the epiphany I had early on, and again, I'm based in California. Most of my students are multi -language kiddos. And I realized early in my career, like, my gosh, I'm relying so much, maybe entirely on verbal communication alone, that I needed ways to reduce the cognitive load for students who are translating everything they're hearing, everything they're seeing, and whatnot. And so I made it.

super clear, like this is exactly what it looks like when we start class. When we transition, we go here. It didn't even require words. I could project that in the classroom, but if I had 30 kids in the room, there was 29 visual reminders as well. So that modeling piece was really important with executive function. And the truth is there's no time to quote unquote teach these skills even if you wanted to, right? Find me a teacher who has extra time on their hands.

Nobody does, right? I don't have enough time in the school day and I don't have enough time in the school year to get through what I want to or what I'm tasked with teaching. So even if I want students to develop these skills and habits, where am I going to fit it in? Right? So the kind of thesis, if you will, of my work is you don't have to fit it in. This has a very small time foot in the classroom because what we're doing is we're establishing a routine, this daily predictable routine.

Mitch Weathers (08:57.836)
And as a byproduct of engaging in that routine with the learning community, I get practice employing these executive functioning skills and I'm always seeing them modeled. So it's kind of that three part work, clarity, routine and modeling. And it can be applied in any context. doesn't matter what the subject is or the grade level that you're in at the time, because it's just basically this routine.

So like when we're looking at organized binary, we're training and working with teachers. It's all about that modeling and routine. We're actually not even talking about the executive functioning because they're getting practice every day with it. And over time, those skills start to become their own. Like I love to say, like it's great that students can get organized. What I want to see is students learn to get and stay organized. It's their thing now. So does that make sense?

Seth (09:52.622)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah. mean, I've got more questions, which is appropriate because I'm the host of a podcast. But, you know, it's funny that you, you mentioned, you know, getting organized, staying organized. I just had an experience this past weekend with my 11 year old daughter, where we cleaned her room for eight hours.

Mitch Weathers (10:19.342)
was going to say, how long did that take? Because I've been there.

Seth (10:19.44)
we, yeah, it was, was, and you know, and I'd like to tell you that it's the first time it's happened. but it's not, we, we removed, like two garbage bags full of trash and two garbage bags worth of clothing. we also, like, I, I realized that I had done some things poorly here. Like there were things in the closet that like didn't belong to her that were just being stored there that were just, you know, adding to the clutter.

but we, I, I think, you know, I took a picture of the room this morning because, know, I, and she and I were like, had breakfast up there because we wanted to like bask in like the, the, the like order and cleanliness of it. and, and then we have that picture to remind us of like how to get back there. But now I'm like, okay, how do I get her to stay with the program? Right. Because all along the way it was me.

Mitch Weathers (10:57.128)
I love it.

Mitch Weathers (11:05.07)
I that.

Mitch Weathers (11:10.871)
Mm -hmm.

Seth (11:14.328)
helping her make decisions about where to put things. know, one of the ideas that I had was that I could kind of gamify it a little bit and like talk to her about how cleaning your room is basically like an organizational game, right? Like it's categorizing, right? Like what you're doing is you're trying to put like things together so that when a like thing, another like thing arrives in the room, you know a place.

Mitch Weathers (11:24.536)
Mm.

Mitch Weathers (11:41.838)
goes.

Seth (11:41.924)
for it to go, right? Whether it's a new thing or, or, or, you know, a thing that you took out, like, you know, where it goes because that's the category, that's the location for that category. Right. And so I'm considering kind of gamifying it in that way, but I'm wondering, and I don't want to get too much into home because I know this is for school, but I, but I like what, what advice do you have for me in supporting my daughter to get her from being someone who just had her room cleaned to being someone who keeps

her room clean.

Mitch Weathers (12:14.385)
Yeah, well, I'm just gonna put myself over in your side of the podcast and I'll speak to myself too, because I just did the same thing with my 15 year old who's a total, I couldn't believe the volume, like just the physical volume of stuff that came out of a room. So it's like, this doesn't even seem like it can fit in here. where did, you're like creating matter. This is incredible.

Seth (12:29.156)
Where'd you get it? Where'd you get all this?

Mitch Weathers (12:41.312)
You know, and I think it does relate in this, by the way, this work can also be happening at home. It's been really interesting. A lot of the parent feedback from the book, which I wrote my book primarily for teachers, two teachers as a teacher, but parents are getting it too. And there's some cool things happening.

Seth (12:59.992)
And keeping the classroom clean is definitely like a challenge for all teachers, right? How do we keep organized?

Mitch Weathers (13:03.628)
Right. Yeah. And I think, and I'm really glad you brought this up, Seth, because it's a reminder for me and I imagine all parents that it's, if we look at the, again, back to these six executive functioning skills, one, establishing a routine around the bedroom for our house too, with this child in particular, interestingly, not my youngest, getting out the door in the morning.

Like if there's not a routine, it won't happen. mean, and even so, she's usually the one with her socks and shoes and one arm, her backpack and lunch and the other arm, and she's, you everyone's waiting in the car to go to school, right? But repetition, so routine, like this is kind of what we do. for example, and I'm just making this up, but we did laundry. What's the routine?

Like getting it like crystal clear like this is what we do when we come to this time. You've already modeled it and you took a picture. That's the class sample binder. Hey, let's look back. Remember it actually can look like this. what and it it's going to take it's in it and here's the thing and I know you're not saying this, but there's no way. Like one and done like we did it. You see now you're good right? And that's the thing with with with executive functions in the classroom. It's the rep.

Seth (14:13.449)
You

You

Seth (14:25.806)
Yeah

Mitch Weathers (14:32.308)
It's repetition. then the other piece to all this is accountability. Once, and I'll talk about classroom and organized binder first and then the bedroom. But what I tell teachers is once you've clearly established this routine, like this is exactly what it looks like to be ready to go when we begin. Here's what, you know,

And once you have this class sample, so your modeling organization, and for your daughter, I love what you're saying, there's categories. So when you find like objects, this looks like a sock. I know where those things go. In organized binder, one of the things I always say is, if everything has a place where it lives, an explicit, very clear place where it lives, it's more likely to find its way home. So if I just hand you a binder and

Seth (15:05.185)
That's the routine, yeah.

Seth (15:18.881)
you

Mitch Weathers (15:21.994)
now I'm hoping you're organized. I'd be akin to you saying, hey kid, we cleaned up your room and we had breakfast in here and you're set. It's like, no, no, no, we're going to practice this over and over, but I'm going to hold you accountable because accountability, through the executive functioning lens, I believe is two things. It's something a caring adult does for young people, hold them accountable and that young people learn.

to do for themselves, hold themselves accountable. And that's where I hear you wanting this to move with your daughter. And that's just over time. I make this point really clear in my book. There's no point in holding a kid accountable if there's not something very tangible for them to be held accountable to. So does that make sense? Once this routine's in place, it's like, and that all generated honestly from an incredible

Seth (15:50.35)
Hmm.

Seth (16:12.308)
Yeah.

Mitch Weathers (16:17.23)
incredibly annoying, tardy problem at my school and in my classroom. And I realized I had never taken a moment to say like, what's it look like to be on time? I just assumed everybody knew. And just like, I assume that my daughter knows that those socks don't go in your desk drawer. They go over there where the other socks are. And then one day I realized, I'm like, okay.

Seth (16:31.598)
Hmm.

Seth (16:40.46)
Yeah.

Mitch Weathers (16:47.246)
I can't make assumptions about anything. And I have my version of what it means to be on time and there's 30 other versions literally, potentially in this room. So my job is to paint those gray areas black and white. And once I do, now as a loving adult, I can hold you accountable. Right? I, I, does that make sense? I call them character questions in the classroom. Like, look, everyone's going to be late sometimes. That just happens. I'm not talking about those days.

Seth (16:50.36)
Yeah, my gosh, that was like one of the...

Seth (17:01.774)
Yeah.

Seth (17:06.436)
God, I...

Mitch Weathers (17:15.906)
I'm talking about you making a decision that you have full empowerment to make and execute on. It's character question. Who are going to be? Are going to do this or not? And I'm not saying that. You know what I mean?

Seth (17:26.692)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's funny that you say I feel like that was one of the first things, first lessons I learned as a teacher was how you can't assume they know anything, right? Like some of the things that are like the most basic, you're looking at all of that through the lens of your upbringing, your culture, like you have no idea what the truth is for the 29 little faces looking up at you, right? And

Mitch Weathers (17:39.94)
Great.

Seth (17:54.314)
So I wonder though about motivation, right? Because one of the things to bring it back to my daughter's room, like, because it's been years now with with us like talking about this. And one of the things that she said at one point was like, I just don't care. Like, like you guys care. And I just don't care if it's clean or not. I understand that when you walk into the room, it relieves your anxiety to see that it's clean.

Mitch Weathers (17:59.342)
Share.

Seth (18:22.808)
but I don't get anxious. It doesn't make me anxious. I'm fine with it the way it is. And I imagine that there are some correlations to the classroom there, right? Like the student who is fine keeping their papers messy or doesn't care about this particular subject area or doesn't necessarily want to have a goal when it comes to this thing because it's not important to them to have a goal for this thing. Where does motivation

come in in discussions of executive function? Is it just a matter of like getting them into the routine and then it kind of doesn't matter if they're motivated or not because it'll come or like is it something that you have to explicitly address?

Mitch Weathers (18:50.264)
Mm -hmm.

Mitch Weathers (18:58.136)
Great.

Mitch Weathers (19:03.33)
Yeah, that's a great question. think motivation can be honed, it can be developed in students and in young people. But in the classroom, one of the nice things about this work is to be honest, it kind of just becomes rhythm and routine. I would argue pretty much with anybody, young people thrive in a more predictable

Seth (19:33.401)
Mm -hmm.

Mitch Weathers (19:33.44)
environment because remember in the classroom there's variables that are always changing. We're always learning something new. There's things like I'm getting creative with my lesson. I'm doing these things. So having something I can depend on this routine and that we collectively engage in together. That collectiveness of the learning community tends to motivate and students are engaged in the routine. Now when there's

Seth (20:01.422)
Good old peer pressure.

Mitch Weathers (20:03.104)
Yeah, good old peer pressure. then for me, it was just like, hey, this is just what we do here. This isn't this. There's no opting out, right? There's no you can't opt out of this. This is what we do here. So you have to have your binder. We start here. We start, know, and if the and this gets into like MTSS and RTI on one side and it gets into behavior on the other, because sometimes students can't. And this is, by the way, told side note.

this work around executive functioning is tier one. It's for all kids getting exposure and practice with these skills, right? And executive functioning in the school system is largely lived in the tier two and tier three kind of special ed space, which I'm not saying that's a problem. Go ahead.

Seth (20:45.604)
And can you, MTSS RTI, can you break those down?

Mitch Weathers (20:50.626)
Yeah, they're basically like multi -tiered systems of support. So if at the bottom of a triangle, if we're not seeing a visual, you'd have like all kids. And if somebody is struggling or is having difficulty or whatever it be, there'll be a small group, more targeted intervention to help that student. And a tier three would be almost like one -on -one support for that student. Okay, and so you look at...

Seth (21:18.269)
So multi -tiered system of support and response to intervention.

Mitch Weathers (21:20.908)
right, in its response to intervention. kind of, and in some states, there's other acronyms here in the US. But yeah, it's looking at it and saying, okay, what's the appropriate intervention for students with what need we're identifying in them as learners? And one thing that I've seen, you know, in many...

opportunities to visit schools and districts is that we do sometimes most times do tier two and tier three really well. Our special ed department, our counselors like honed in on helping a kid but tier one. What's happening here? Tier one, like every student's getting practice and I just fundamentally believe that executive all students, not just struggling students need that practice and they need to see it modeled in that routine. Now if in this this

It seems like motivation, but if a student just can't do the routine, like something's impeding that, that's a red flag. We go, hey, this isn't like hard to do. And I'm not shaming you if you can't do it, but if you're lacking engagement and I'm perceiving it as a lack of motivation, is it really? It might be, but that I need those red flags as a teacher. Like, hey, why can't you get

and stay organized. Here we are, or whatever, three months into the school year and you're still struggling or whatever it might, whatever that piece might be. And then the other side of that is once I explore and I'm having the conversation with the student, which means I care about you, I'm getting to know you, so relational pedagogy, this matters, like what's going on? Don't just stuff everything in your book bag, you know? We feel better.

We're more productive, we're more effective, we're more efficient when we're organized. And I want that for you, right? And if it is a behavior thing, well, then that's another, it's a different conversation, but it's a conversation we need to have. And I think from my experience, not think I know, I've seen both and I've seen both turned around when the appropriate intervention is there. And then success in the classroom, you know, historically,

Mitch Weathers (23:36.46)
Or too often, maybe is a better way to say it, success in the classroom is tied entirely to content. So if I'm successful with the content, I feel good, I'm good, right? For those students maybe who are struggling with whatever that reason might be, opportunities to feel successful within the classroom context that aren't tied to content are really important and very rare, right? So I've just seen all that swirl together to kind of motivate.

Seth (24:00.771)
Yeah.

Mitch Weathers (24:06.198)
Now the big question for you and I is dads, can you take that and put it into the bedroom at home? I don't know. You know, I know my daughter. I mean, the question I would ask if I could have sat down with you for breakfast would have really just been more about like, how do you feel right now? Like, well, let's just talk about that and write good. Cause I think you come back to those times where you say you don't care. You say you're not anxious.

Seth (24:26.178)
Yeah, we talked about that, yeah.

Mitch Weathers (24:36.556)
I'm not sure I'm totally buying that. Right?

Seth (24:39.34)
Yeah. Yeah. And if I know anything, it's that my kid loves it when I tell her she's feeling the wrong thing. Sarcasm warning. was sarcastic. I want to get into like time management and goal setting. These are two things that like popped out both when you're listing the skills that you talk about.

Mitch Weathers (24:47.054)
Yeah, that's a good one. Parenting 101. That's also teaching 101, everybody. Listen to Seth.

Seth (25:09.396)
how do, how do these two things, cause you're talking about being organized, right? I, I assume like one of the things I did recently is I got a, a clock, with like, you know, an old clock and analog clock with hands and everything. and it's up in, in the living room and it's my son's responsibility now in the morning to like, cause he goes to school first. like to get things ready by a certain time and he has to.

tell, he has to tell time in order to be able to do that. So it's kind of a fun little game of like, okay, you have until seven 40 to, you know, do your PT exercises or brush your teeth or whatever it is. and, and so that's like, I guess that's kind of deadline oriented.

time management that I've kind of worked in a little bit to try to help with his executive functioning. Because ever since I met you, I've been diving into this a little bit more and like trying to figure out how to support me. And then, you know, with goal setting, like how does this all work together? Like, you connect these things kind of conceptually for me in the pro, like within the classroom and within the organized binder? Like how do time management and goal setting

Mitch Weathers (26:05.624)
Sorry man.

Seth (26:25.865)
connect to the rest of these skills.

Mitch Weathers (26:28.258)
Yeah, great, great question. And I'm glad you put it in the context of the classroom and not the bedroom because that's a different, the kids bedroom thing, you know, the goal setting, different conversation. But in the classroom, you know, the, there's no, the research out, mean, it's shown that when students can set goals, meaningful goals, it has an impact. It helps them be more successful.

And yet goal setting is void in most classrooms. And we make the mistake, you know, there's one acronym that everybody associates with goal setting. if I, I'm not even gonna ask you, because I know you know it's SMART goals. We gotta set SMART goals. It's like, no, that doesn't work for kids. It's like, what's that acronym mean? It's like, I can't even remember. And usually when I ask a bunch of teachers, I mean, I know a couple of the things.

We all kind of like collectively like measurable, specific. Okay, you got it, right? Time -bound, but ask a fifth grader to set smart goals. It's like, don't know. I've never set goals. Is this a smart goal? think it's smart. It's a great, that acronym is a great thing to review goals through once they're set. It's not a mechanism for setting goals. I think it's a mistake we make, is it?

Seth (27:30.724)
specific, time -bound, achievable.

Mitch Weathers (27:53.454)
convolutes and confuses the goal -setting process. So in Organized Binder, every quarter, so about every eight weeks, maybe nine weeks, we are explicitly pausing and setting goals. And there's one word we keep in mind when it comes to goal -setting for young people, and I would argue old people alike, is singular. We want one goal. What's the one overarching goal? This is our main bearing. We actually encourage teachers to, the first time you do this,

recognizing that most students have never set goals, this is true of college as well, you set the goal as a way of modeling it and say, this for the first eight weeks, let's just have this be our goal. And you can get individualistic if you want with your sub goal and daily tasks, which I'll talk about in just a moment, but just that's back to that modeling piece. Like I'm not just gonna say, hey, what's your goal? Like here's these steps. No, let's just say at a minimum, I want everybody to be successful.

in this class. I want you to be successful. And that usually means lots of things, but at a minimum it means a passing grade. So let's say that's our goal. I'm going to be successfully pass whatever fifth grade. And okay, great. Now let's have a conversation about how you do that. What have you seen? What do you do? What have you heard people do? Like how do you successfully

pass a class or be successful at this school year or whatever it might be. And it, please have it be a public community conversation. Cause some people are going to hear stuff that they've never thought of before. And I used to tell my students all the time, you might think this is like so common sense. Maybe someone just hasn't thought about the fact that if they just do all their homework, they're more likely to be successful. Or if they can figure out, you know, this organizational piece, like whatever it might be. So let's just talk about it all.

and I'd have a scribe up on the board and we're making a big list. And student, could either collectively agree on one or students could pick their sub goals. So there's the main goal, the sub goal. Okay. And so for example, as a ninth grade teacher, my morning classes, it wasn't uncommon for students to recognize if I come to school on time, I'm more likely to be successful because I'm missing five, 10, 15 minutes of the class period. Right. So my goal might be

Mitch Weathers (30:18.882)
to pass the class or be successful. My sub goal is to get to school on time and most young people and maybe adults alike will say, you know, that's, that's it. I'm just going to come on time. And my next thing is, okay, what's the daily task? There has to be an action item in goals. And so what I want is when and where you want to get here on time, what's that mean for you? And you said this with your son, right? The clock it's it gets in that sense. It's a deadline, but

You say, I'm going to pass the class, I'm going to do all my homework. Okay, when and where? Do you play sports? Do you have a job? If you're a young person, you go home right after school? Like, okay, at 3 .45, I'm going to sit down at the dining room table, I'm going to do all my homework before I go and play. Or whatever it might be. I want there to be an action item because then, again, just like with the modeling piece in the classroom, once I have that action item, I can hold you accountable and so can your family. I can encourage you and so can your family.

But if it's just kind of pie in the sky goal setting, or I don't want to be successful, I want whatever it may be, I want that action item so I can check in with you. But for goal setting in the classroom, has to be like a fabric of, it's got to be part of what we do. So an organized binder, there's eight tabs. Tab A is the first thing you see every day when you open your binder. It's colored gold, because we want them going for the gold. And that's where your goals sit. You physically wrote them down.

Seth (31:43.48)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (31:45.294)
You, me, your family, everyone, you know, not all of you are a kid in the class, but we can see your goals. You see your goals every day, right? So it becomes kind of part of what we do. Now, where does that, how does that overlay with time management, planning and time management? Well, oftentimes that goal is...

around being successful in a class or accomplishing something in the class. And so when I look at for us in organized binder, the second step of the daily routine is what we call the agenda. It actually kind of looks like a calendar, but just in like two weeks snapshots. And so when I'm introducing the lesson, I'm constantly modeling this skill of maintaining a calendar, like planning and like, this is coming up in three days. Let's put that on our agenda. Cause that's what people do who keep a calendar. Right.

And we're constantly coming back to that. if this connection makes sense, let's say there's, I'm an English teacher in sixth grade and we have an essay we're working on putting that due date on the calendar and having it there, seeing it. So I know it's coming up and all that. How are my goals influencing that? Like my engagement, my effort, all of it needs to kind of be interwoven.

And when it's in the same portfolio, they don't feel like these isolated events. you look at organization and organized binder, we get to the end of the unit of study. I could be in third grade learning some, whatever the thematic unit is, every teacher I've ever met has teaches through thematic units of curriculum, but having a hard stop, whether there's some formal assessment or not, maybe it's a PBL classroom, it's a due date of a project or something.

Creating, we call it a unit chunk. We have this table of contents. All the assignments are indexed behind that table of contents. Create that unit chunk, get a new table of contents. It feels like a new beginning. But before we do the new table of contents, pause. Let's flip to our goals. Am I seeing any, based on this output, my time and management, my agenda, and this unit of study I just completed, is there any evidence of my goals and what I'm shooting for?

Mitch Weathers (34:09.462)
manifesting in this work. Does that that making sense what I'm saying?

Seth (34:13.9)
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of coming together. I mean, it feels like there's a bit of a there's some there's some planning element to it. There's also reflection. It's kind of like almost student portfolio ish because you're looking looking for that, that evidence of of completion of perhaps a qualitative goal. Another thing that it reminded me of, there's David Allen has this method of like getting things done. I don't know if you've heard of him, but

Mitch Weathers (34:25.581)
100%.

Mitch Weathers (34:40.088)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seth (34:40.732)
yeah, yeah. but that's that whole, you know, I have to plan a birthday party. That seems like a big, hard thing to do. But if the next step of planning a birthday party is that I have to call and order a cake, like that's a small, measurable, achievable thing that I can check that off my list. And then you go to the next thing from there. Right. and so I liked that, that element of it where you're breaking down larger goals into smaller chunks. I think of some of the students in my classes who have.

Mitch Weathers (34:53.634)
can do that.

Seth (35:06.348)
established a goal, for example, when we work with students in Asia, almost, and I've done this before, had a routine for setting our goals for the year where the first thing we would do is we would reflect upon the previous year and look at the ways that we have grown since last year and then use that to generate ways that we'd like to grow this year and turn those into goals. Then actually we evolved that into, we then asked the question, what do we need from each other in order to be able to

reach our goals. And then that evolved into our classroom rules, because that would make it so that anytime you're enforcing a classroom rule, it's not just about me doing a top down thing to you. It's about us all collectively achieving our goals, right? Which is awesome and a really great system. And it always came, the rules always came down to one word, which is respect. was just respect yourself, respect your peers, respect your, your, the classroom, the materials. Anyway,

Mitch Weathers (35:39.262)
Mm -hmm. Love that.

Mitch Weathers (35:48.046)
community, right?

Mitch Weathers (35:58.038)
I love that. Yeah.

Seth (36:03.168)
So I, but I think about like some of the like general things that my students would say when they're setting their goals, like I want to get better at English or I want to get better at writing. And I think that a way to address that, even if you kept the goal that general would be to say, okay, let's break that down into some of those smaller steps. And then you'd start to get some of those smaller things, those more, more achievable things, more measurable things, which

I do hear smart goals all over what you're doing. understand that it's like not something you want to teach. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, wonder though, you, mentioned six skills, but eight tabs in organized binder. Can you, can you kind of break down the like, like what are the six skills? What are the eight tabs? Do they relate to each other? Like, like just, just kind of map that out for us.

Mitch Weathers (36:30.696)
I'm not saying smar goals is a bad thing. just it's not a goal. I don't think it's a goal setting template for young people. I a review.

Mitch Weathers (36:51.918)
Did you teach math in a former life? That's a good catch. Yeah, so tab A is goal setting, tab B, we call it the weekly lifeline. It's all about retrieval practice and flexing your working memory. know that learning, the more opportunities we get to interact with what we're trying to learn, which necessitates retrieval. I gotta go back and the more I'm interacting, the better.

more likely to move that thing that I'm trying to learn into my long -term memory. So the second tab B, it's called this weekly lifeline, and we begin and end in kind of this cyclical bell -to -bell instruction, not bell -to -bell instruction that there's no brain breaks or anything in the classroom, but really trying to utilize or exploit the first few moments and the last few moments of the class period or the school day, which can often be some of the most underutilized class time.

Seth (37:48.142)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (37:48.44)
Hence the term gray areas in our lessons was kind of undefined spaces, which can be problematic for students. So that's tab B, tab C is this agenda that's modeling a calendar. And to your point around goal setting, I remember students saying that like this quarter, like I really want to learn like whatever the topics were we were studying. Or to your point, I want to learn, I want to work on my writing. I want to work on my.

English language development and like how do you break that down and then that that c tab the third tab which which is our planning and time management it's always trying to come back to that like okay what are we doing here this week that we're putting on our calendar that's relevant to those goals you're setting right because i think you you you uncover some motivation there when you do that make those connections but so tab a goal tab b working memory tab

Seth (38:40.291)
Mm

Mitch Weathers (38:45.614)
C, planning and time management. Tab D is the accountability piece. That's our binder check. So once a month, we pause to make sure your portfolio looks like my portfolio. Right? And if, by the way, if there's any schools out there that do student led parent teacher conferences, is the, it's the crown jewel for that because they literally have all of their stuff there, but I need to hold you accountable and make sure your binder looks like mine.

Seth (39:04.739)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (39:16.024)
Tab E is a place for your syllabus. And we're really passionate about a syllabi in Organized Binder because how many times have students struggled in a post K -12 learning environment, AKA college, community college, whatever it might be, simply because no one ever taught them how to keep a calendar and they don't know how to unpack a syllabus. And that first week of school, first week of the semester, the professor,

hands you the syllabus and you just better be ready to go on week 15. And I'm not going to talk about it again, because you're in college now, right? We've all some, most of us have had that experience and I've now seen it through this side of when we work with a college for four year or a community college that all of them will say like the skill that often trips new or returning students is

Seth (39:53.241)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (40:12.622)
planning and time management, like being able to unpack a syllabus, be ready to go with what I needed to do and whatnot. So we actually have a place for a syllabus to encourage even in elementary, like some type of document to just introduce students to and start that conversation. And it's a great place, of course, for your policies and school stuff and all that. Tab F and G are the organizational skills. So that's why you're seeing two.

Seth (40:29.399)
Mm

Mitch Weathers (40:41.92)
And you already said the word that's near and dear to my heart. You said toolkit, the teacher's toolkit. In an organized binder, tab G is the table of contents and all of our unit specific work. This is the stuff we're trying to learn, right? It gets indexed on the table of contents. Okay. So another thing, an organized binder, which I could be showing you all this because we're just talking about it, but there's no tabs for like notes and homework and quizzes and

the categories in a grade book. Another mistake that's made in classrooms is that we take the categories in a grade book as a schematic for organizational skills. So I have a tab for my notes. I have a tab for this. have it. Those are just categories or types of assignments. And I believe that categories in a grade book, that's important for equity and waiting and all of that. It's not an organizational schema.

We all teach through thematic units of curriculum. So let's capture that sequencing in this unit chunk. But now, here we are in, let's say it's November, let's say it's April. There's some stuff we did back in September that I'd really like to reference or I'd like to add to. But it's trapped in unit one or unit two or unit three because we're literally creating these unit chunks, right?

Seth (41:36.984)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (42:05.804)
That's where the toolkit comes in. So tab F is your academic toolkit and it's anything that teachers want students to reference throughout the school year or add to. So I can just say, hey, if I am setting up a lab report as a ninth grade science teacher, I can just say, hey, hey, everybody, remember those notes we took on the scientific method in August? Turn to those with your lab partners, it's F1, and review the hypothesis part before you bring it to me for approval for your lab and you have.

all the kids in the room that look at some Cornell notes they took six months earlier, right? And I always paused in the classroom and like, hey, did everybody see what you just did? That's actually more important than your hypothesis in my book. Look what you just did. That's cool, right? And so the toolkit is that quick access piece. But when we talk about quote unquote teaching organizational skills, if our goal is to get and have them stay and learn to stay organized,

The distinction between the stuff we're learning and the tools or resources I'm being equipped with to be successful with that stuff needs to be very clear for students. And I think most young people see it. This is all just stuff from school. I just stuff it in my book bag or my desk or I don't know where it is. Like, no, no, no, Like I always tell them, like, hey, if I'm doing this project and I'm using a screwdriver and I tighten that screw, I don't just leave the screwdriver stuck in the

head of the screw and go on to my next thing. Like I got to put that back in my toolkit because I might need it in an hour or next week or next month and I lose it. So helping them see that. And then the last it's actually an optional tab. That's the eighth tab, which is tab H. So it's all A through H. It's yellow. And that's where we store our passes. And I say optional because of course colleges aren't using that and certain levels of elementary may not use it either.

but it's a fun way to incorporate some self -regulation in that you get three of these per term, whatever that is, we'll call it a semester. And any of them, they're not an emergency pass, they're not a nurse's pass or anything like that, they're almost like currency. Any of them that are unused are worth one missing assignment. Maybe you forgot a homework assignment. Like, so now do you really have to go to the bathroom or are you just going out there to meet up with your friends? are you like, know, having kind of some...

Mitch Weathers (44:30.87)
Some fun with that as the last tab. It's probably way too long of an explanation. You were just asking why eight instead of six, but.

Seth (44:33.166)
Ha.

Seth (44:36.996)
No, that's exactly what I was looking for. you know, cause I think that like when teachers hear this kind of stuff, you know, there's a, professional development in general, think what they're looking for is like, what are some ideas here that I can incorporate into my practice easily? Right. And I think they, heard a lot of things here. we heard about, you know, establishing routines, which we know all about, but like breaking them down into like the minutia.

Mitch Weathers (44:56.162)
Mm -hmm.

Seth (45:05.56)
We talked about like putting things on a timeline more organizing a calendar I love that like, reference pieces like these are all little things were like if someone were not to You know go all in that they could take and they could use and they could and they could benefit their classroom But for the people who do want to go all in like how does a school? How does a teacher engage with organized binder? What are the steps to making it happen?

Mitch Weathers (45:31.98)
Yeah. well, pretty simple people. We reach out, there's two parts to our work training and support. So we are never ever, ever a one time flash in the pan PD and you never see us again. And I say us, me or a trainer. All of our trainers are either actively teaching teachers, like people who are in the classroom, or are retired who use the program as well. So it's a really authentic.

and like connected training. And then ongoing support. So we schedule all of those. just call them follow ups. So we're just building relationships with people because this takes time. We have a full teacher dashboard. And then it's just a materials order. get a student bundle for the class. Each kid gets one. So it's pretty straightforward. And you asked about teachers.

We get contacted by individual teachers weekly that want to bring the program to their school. We don't sell to individual teachers. I'm just kind of morally and ethically opposed to that. And so the conversation usually is with someone at the district office or an admin, right? So we can do those kinds of contractual conversations. But what's been tugging on my heartstrings for years now has been

What about a teacher who that it's not, they can't get it this year to their school. Maybe that's next year or maybe ever. I don't know. That's why I wrote my book. And you made this point like, well, if I didn't, if I want to go all in and I can tell you teachers out there who are listening or educators in general, not just teachers, to be honest, the materials component is really for the teacher, right? You could do all this work, but there's a cognitive load.

Seth (47:11.342)
Hmm.

Mitch Weathers (47:30.2)
to creating, replenishing, copying, disseminating. If you can just get these and hand them to the kid, get to the work of executive functioning, get to the routine and the modeling. And I've seen it firsthand, it can trip up the quality of the implementation. But I wrote my book to say, I still want to help and serve teachers who don't have organized binder. They don't have that training and support. So how do you incorporate

Seth (47:32.993)
Mm -hmm.

Mitch Weathers (47:58.504)
some or all of these strategies until you can get there is kind of the idea. And you're right, you could pick one. You kind of mentioned that if you couldn't go all in, but there's one of the things I say in the preface of the book is that I hope when teachers read it, because of the routine aspect of this work, that there's a coherency or these all kind of go together. You could pick one and do it. Absolutely.

But if you adopt the routine, you'll see how kind of organically they're connected and kind of amplify each other. So yeah, but if you're ready for organized minder, that's a simple conversation. And in my opinion, the way to go, that's not a cell job or anything. It's just from years of experience doing this executive functioning work.

Seth (48:34.892)
Yeah. Yeah.

Seth (48:51.096)
Yeah, and the way you describe it definitely sounds like it flows together in a way that makes a ton of sense. OrganizedBinder .com, that's the place where you can find information anywhere else that you'd like our listeners to find you on the internet.

Mitch Weathers (49:03.884)
You can look if you're really patient. It's kind of like the, is it the panda that lives in the bamboo forest that you can't see, even though they're black and white? That's kind of like me on social. It'd be better to just reach out. I actually put my email in the book too, but it's mitch at organizedbinder .com. But yeah, there's organized binder on probably LinkedIn. We're on all the, not TikTok. I don't even know what that is yet.

Seth (49:17.292)
Yeah.

Mitch Weathers (49:32.231)
I'm old enough to not even care. So you can find me or OrganizeBinder on social or just go to OrganizeBinder .com.

Seth (49:40.578)
Awesome. well, Mitch, thank you so much for being here today. really appreciate you telling us about, this awesome, service that you have, and these great ideas. it's interesting cause I'm actually having someone on my next version or next episode of the podcast. Karen Dudek Brandon, who is more of like a tier two, executive functioning person. So I think these two episodes will, yeah, we'll go well together.

Mitch Weathers (49:43.288)
Thanks, Seth. Yeah, man.

Mitch Weathers (50:03.667)
cool, I'm tuning in. Yeah.

Seth (50:08.45)
But thank you as always to our listeners. If you'd like to support the podcast, please do leave a review, rate it, follow us, tell a friend. Thank you as always to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And remember, if you want to bring positive change to education, you must first make it mindful. See you next time.