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In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Phil Evans - a career educator who works on schoolwide adoption strategy for the International Baccalaureate and hosts his own podcast, Education by Design - about what school is actually for, and how personalization, agency, and systemic coherence pull against each other in practice. The conversation leans on Brookings researcher Rebecca Winthrop's framework distinguishing passengers, achievers, resistors, and explorers as different modes of student engagement. Together, Seth and Phil explore the tension between personalizing learning for individual students and scaling any given approach across a whole system, why compliance-driven curriculum may be preparing students for a workplace that's already moved on to skills-based hiring, and what Rebecca Winthrop's engagement-and-agency framework gets right about the limits of always aiming for "explorer" mode. They also get into why coherence - not talent, and not curriculum - is what actually determines whether teachers share their best work: Phil contrasts a gifted teacher working entirely alone with a network of IB educators trading resources by the jump drive, simply because the second group had already agreed on a common framework. Key topics: What school is actually for - market signal, individual capacity, or civic preparationThe tension between personalization and scalability in education policyCompliance versus agency as workplace-readiness skills in the AI eraRebecca Winthrop's passenger / achiever / resistor / explorer frameworkWhy coherent, shared systems - not individual talent - determine whether teachers collaborateThe IB's schoolwide model as a case study in systemic coherenceSelf-knowledge and career choice at 22 versus 42Links & Resources: Education by Design - Phil Evans's podcast: edubydesign.comInternational Baccalaureate: ibo.orgGuest Bio: Phil Evans Phil Evans works on schoolwide adoption strategy for the International Baccalaureate, helping schools design and scale services that support IB implementation. He's spent nearly eighteen years teaching and working inside IB schools in the U.S. after moving from Australia in 2008, and in 2025 launched his own podcast, Education by Design, exploring how schools are architected rather than simply operated. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Lesley Hatton, Senior Programme Officer at Nord Anglia Education, about Global Campus — the platform connecting nearly 90 schools across Nord Anglia's international network, and what it takes to design cross-cultural connection at that scale. The conversation draws on 2023 research with University College London that identified four "connection pillars" behind the program's design. Together, Seth and Lesley explore how Nord Anglia's four connection pillars — self, world, experts, and community — took shape from that UCL research, and the test her team uses to decide whether a proposed activity (a long-requested "mathematics club," a Tanzania expedition, live drawing sessions paired with MIT and Juilliard) actually builds connection or just adds more schoolwork. They get into the harder part of running one platform across dozens of countries with different cultural and legal norms — what gets moderated, what gets held back for a specific school, and why something as simple as an image of a pig can be off-limits in some places. Lesley walks through the six student behaviors her team tracks, including the finding that students at Nord Anglia's most-connected schools score six to ten points higher than their peers on self-reported measures of those behaviors — and closes with what a school outside any international network can realistically borrow from the model. Key Topics The four connection pillars: self, world, experts, community2023 UCL research on intercultural competenceDesigning activities that build real cross-cultural connection (the mathematics club example)Content moderation across different countries' cultural and legal normsCollaborations with MIT, Juilliard, and UNICEFThe six student behaviors and the most-connected-schools dataBuilding global connection without an international networkLinks & Resources Global Campus — Nord Anglia EducationNord Anglia EducationLearning Explorations - Nord Anglia's podcast hosted by Emily Murphy: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/learning-explorations/id1673148486Seth's earlier Make It Mindful conversation with Emily Murphy on metacognition — https://www.banyangloballearning.com/podcast/45-metacognition-the-first-step-to-lifelong-learning-with-kayla-morehead-and-emily-murphyWhy Distance Learning, Seth's other podcast — https://www.cilc.org/Members/Why-Distance-Learning-Podcast.aspxBanyan Global CohortsWorld SavvySvitlo SchoolGuest Bio: Lesley Hatton Lesley Hatton is a Senior Programme Officer at Nord Anglia Education, where she works on Global Campus, the platform connecting students across Nord Anglia's international network of schools. Before moving into this role, she taught in international schools herself. Hatton studied at the University of Warwick and is based in Reading, UK. About the Host Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Judy Paulick — associate professor of teacher education at the University of Virginia — about a question her field has never really studied: what home visits mean to the families receiving them, not just the teachers making them. Her team has just begun data collection on a new W.T. Grant Foundation-funded study following 25 teachers and 75 families to find out. Together, Seth and Judy explore why the impact of home visits on families has gone almost entirely unstudied even as the impact on teachers has been documented for years, and what her new study — following 25 teachers and 75 Latine families — is designed to find. They talk about what her team learned checking back in with teachers seven and eight years after their first home visits, how she teaches student teachers to hold general cultural frameworks and specific family identities at the same time, and what a simulated home visit — complete with a live actor animating an on-screen avatar — can and can't replicate. Judy also gets candid about how she checks her own bias as an advocate for a practice she's spent her career studying. Key topics: New W.T. Grant Foundation study on the family experience of home visitsWhy family-side impact has gone unstudied while teacher-side impact has been documentedSeven-to-eight-year follow-up focus groups from the 2018 home visits studyTeaching cultural humility and cultural frameworks without stereotyping individual familiesActive listening, comfortable silence, and building trust across cultural differenceSimulated home visits: role plays and the "interactor" avatar training toolChecking researcher bias as an advocate for the practice you studyLinks & Resources Judy Paulick — UVA faculty profile: https://education.virginia.edu/about/directory/judy-paulickParent Teacher Home Visits — national organization supporting schools implementing home visiting programs: https://pthvp.org/Paulick, J., Lucas, M., & Hill-Maini, T. (2024). "Teachers Centering Families and Building Rapport During Home Visits." American Educational Research Journal. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/00028312231222270Palacios, N., Paulick, J., Kibler, A., & Blatt, A. (2025). "Humanizing Students: Teacher Reflections Before and After Home Visits." Teachers College Record. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01614681251347426Paulick, J. et al. (2024). "Examining Teacher Candidates' Responses to Parental Disclosures During Simulated Conferences and Home Visits." Action in Teacher Education. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01626620.2024.2442328Paulick, J. et al. (2024). "Factors Influencing Kindergarten Families' Perceptions of Home–School Interactions." Infant and Child Development. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/icd.2540Paulick, J. et al. (2026). "Seeing Students Anew: How Relationship-Building Asset-Framed Home Visits Deepen Teachers' Understanding of Bilingual Families." Language, Culture and Curriculum. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01434632.2026.2654080Paulick, J. (2022). "Power Dynamics and Positioning in Teacher Home Visits with Marginalized Families." American Journal of Education. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/721872Guest Bio: Judy Paulick Judy Paulick is an associate professor of teacher education at the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development, where she studies how teachers learn about their students and families through home visits and how that knowledge shapes classroom practice. Her team has just begun data collection on a new W.T. Grant Foundation-funded study following 25 teachers and 75 families to examine, for the first time, what home visits mean to families themselves. Earlier in her career she taught elementary school in Compton, California, and served as an educator in the Peace Corps in Tonga; she holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Christina Rose - co-founder and chief marketing officer of RIVET, which funds micro-grants for youth-led social innovation in 66 countries - about what actually changes in a young person when they're trusted with real resources, and what schools might take from that. RIVET's model draws on Christina's two decades in cause marketing, including work on the early launch of Bono's (RED) campaign. Together, Seth and Christina explore RIVET's founding premise - that young people globally lack not ideas or drive, but access to capital - and the three-part framework Christina uses to describe what they actually need: financial capital, social capital, and imagination capital. They dig into why youth-led solutions to local problems tend to outperform top-down interventions, using the stories of Walter in Uganda and Stanley in Nigeria to show what that looks like in practice. They talk about patient capital, what it takes to bring skeptical communities along, and what both RIVET and schools are trying to do when they create space for young people to lead. The conversation ends somewhere Seth doesn't always get to go: a direct conversation about what education is fundamentally for, and why that question matters more than most schools are willing to admit. Walter's project, which started with a single $250 grant and a secondhand sewing machine, reduced teen pregnancies in his village by 65% within four years. Key Topics RIVET's micro-grant model for global youthFinancial, social, and imagination capitalYouth-led vs. top-down social innovationPatient capital and redefining success and failureCross-cultural community trust-buildingConnecting school curricula to real-world problemsThe three purposes of educationLinks & Resources RIVET website: rivet.orgRIVETED (RIVET's Substack): rivetorg.substack.comKatie Wales (Brighter Children) episode: https://mim.bepodcast.network/episodes/87-katie-walesGuest Bio: Christina Rose Christina Rose is co-founder and chief marketing and growth officer of RIVET, an organization that channels the collective consumer power of Gen Z and Gen Alpha into micro-grants for youth-led social innovation across 66 countries. She spent 20 years building brands at the intersection of profit and purpose, including work on the early launch of Bono's (RED) campaign and in strategic marketing at Thorn, the child-safety technology nonprofit founded by Ashton Kutcher. She holds a BA from Princeton University. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators - building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Travis Moyer - Banyan Global Learning's Director of Programming - about AI governance: the difference between AI policy and AI governance, and why so many schools have bought AI tools without building the shared language to use them well. Moyer has written previously that tech policy should start with human values rather than device restrictions, and that argument underlies the five-pillar governance framework he describes here. Together, Seth and Travis explore what AI governance actually means as distinct from policy - the difference between rules and instructional purpose - and walk through the five-pillar framework Banyan has built around one central question: what thinking needs to stay human for learning to occur. They get into the classroom-level inconsistency this creates when one teacher bans AI and the one next door doesn't, why governance is a moving target rather than a document you write once, and what Travis actually tells other parents when they ask him what to do. The conversation closes on a specific, low-stakes way parents can start: showing kids what AI is capable of by helping them build something they already care about. Key topics: AI governance vs. AI policy — what's the differenceBanyan's five-pillar AI governance framework"Thinking must stay human" as the framework's centerWhy inconsistent classroom-level AI rules undermine trustCognitive offloading and critical thinking riskPrompt engineering and the case for a dedicated AI classPractical guidance for parents navigating AI at home Links & Resources: "Why Tech Policies Should Start with People: An Ethical Dilemma" — Banyan Global Learning blog, May 16, 2025"Artificial Intelligence in Education: AI Professional Development for Teachers" — Banyan Global Learning blog, August 5, 2025Banyan Global Learning AI Governance services: https://www.banyangloballearning.com/ai-governance Guest Bio: Travis Moyer Travis Moyer is Banyan Global Learning's Director of Programming, where he oversees new program development, including Banyan's AI governance work. He spent over a decade as an elementary and high school science teacher in the U.S., and with Banyan he specializes in live, synchronous distance learning. He holds an M.Ed. from Pepperdine University and a B.S. in Biology from Duke University. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Travis Moyer - Banyan Global Learning's Director of Programming - about Global Cohorts, the four-week virtual exchange program he piloted this spring with three classroom cohorts, and what happens when students design their own festivals for an international audience. Moyer has written previously about designing for flow and deep engagement in virtual classrooms, and that thinking shows up directly in how the program's activities are structured. Together, Seth and Travis explore the origin of Global Cohorts in Banyan's 18-year partnership with Tsai Hsing School in Taipei, the recurring failure points of ad hoc classroom-to-classroom partnerships, and how running multiple cohorts in parallel solves for one partner dropping out mid-unit. They walk through the festivals unit step by step - how students share their own local festivals, study festivals from around the world, get matched with partner schools ahead of time, and eventually use AI to visualize a festival of their own design. The conversation lands on what happened when the exercise reached a cohort of Ukrainian students who'd been scattered by the war: without being prompted to, nearly every student built a festival about family and cultural preservation. Key topics: Global Cohorts program design and originBanyan's 18-year partnership with Tsai Hsing School, TaipeiSolving classroom-partnership dropout with parallel cohortsThe festivals unit: weekly structure and cadenceUsing AI to visualize student-designed festivalsUkrainian student cohort and displacementPlace-based identity themes across cohorts (Minneapolis, Calgary) Links & Resources: Banyan Global Cohorts program: https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts"The Flow State and Education: Deep Focus, Engagement, and Productivity" — Banyan Global Learning blog, December 20, 2024 Guest Bio: Travis Moyer Travis Moyer is Banyan Global Learning's Director of Programming, where he oversees new program development, including Global Cohorts. He spent over a decade as an elementary and high school science teacher in the U.S., and with Banyan has specialized in live, synchronous distance learning. He holds an M.Ed. from Pepperdine University and a B.S. in Biology from Duke University. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores.

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Dr. Alfonso "Fonz" Mendoza Jr. — Teaching and Learning Coordinator at Kami and host of My EdTech Life, a 373-episode podcast that has reached more than 8,500 educators — about what AI actually does and doesn't do for teachers, and what it means to find meaning in work when automation keeps changing what work looks like. This is a crossover episode, appearing on both Make It Mindful and My EdTech Life. Together, Seth and Fonz explore the argument that teachers remain the ultimate technology in the classroom — not because AI isn't capable, but because the ability to read a room, improvise, and form genuine relationships with students isn't something that scales to a statistical prediction machine. They talk about the difference between cognitive offloading and cognitive stunting, the concern that students aren't just delegating skills they've developed, but missing the chance to develop them at all. Fonz pushes back on the language of "neural networks" and "learning," drawing on Dr. Emily Bender's stochastic parrots framework to argue that borrowing human vocabulary for these tools obscures what they actually are. They get into AI governance at the district level, including why Texas still has no state AI policy, what it looks like when a task force actually follows through versus when the conversation dies at back-to-school season, and why equal stakeholder representation (including parents) changes what a policy can do. The episode closes with Fonz's signature speed round, with finding meaning in the concept of NOW. Key topics: The teacher as the ultimate technology in an AI-saturated classroomCognitive stunting vs. cognitive offloading in student AI useStochastic parrots and the danger of anthropomorphizing LLMsAI governance failures at the district levelTrust between students, teachers, and parents in the AI eraFinding purpose and meaning when automation reshapes workGenerational differences in AI attitudes (Gen Z vs. Gen Alpha)LINKS & RESOURCES My EdTech Life podcast — myedtech.lifeKami — kamiapp.com (Fonz's current employer)Dr. Emily Bender — Stochastic Parrots paper — Bender, E.M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Shmitchell, S. (2021). "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" FAccT 2021. https://s10251.pcdn.co/pdf/2021-bender-parrots.pdfKatherine Heavers episode — Make It Mindful https://mim.bepodcast.network/episodes/85-katherine-heaversBanyan Global Learning / Global Cohorts — https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohortsGUEST BIO: Dr. Alfonso "Fonz" Mendoza Jr. Dr. Alfonso "Fonz" Mendoza Jr. is the Teaching and Learning Coordinator at Kami and host of My EdTech Life, a podcast now six years old and 373 episodes in. His work focuses on responsible AI adoption in K–12 education, cutting through the hype to examine what technology actually does for teachers and students, and what it can't replace. He is a Google Innovator, Adobe Education Innovator, and 2024 EdTech Digest Leadership Award winner for Best EdTech Author/Speaker or Podcaster. ABOUT THE HOST About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Katie Hurley Wales — Executive Director of Brighter Children, an all-volunteer nonprofit that funds primary education across India, Colombia, Honduras, Kenya, and Guatemala — about what venture philanthropy actually looks like in practice, and what it takes to build schools that outlast the funders who supported them. Brighter Children doesn't bring educational models to the communities it works in; it identifies local leaders who already have the vision and the trust of their communities, and invests in their capacity to execute it. Together, Seth and Katie explore what distinguishes a philanthropic investment from a transaction, why primary education is Brighter Children's specific lever for breaking generational poverty, and how a rigorous 46-factor due diligence process sits alongside gut instinct when finding school partners. They trace the arc of Brighter Children's work in Honduras, where Shin Fujiyama moved into a community with 65-70% out-of-school rates and gang violence severe enough that the school competed directly with MS-13 for recruits — and where this summer marks the fifth high school graduating class in an area that had a 0% graduation rate when they started. They also talk about what children in these communities understand about education that children in wealthier contexts often don't: not as an abstraction, but as a concrete pathway tied to health, economic mobility, and the stability of their family. The episode closes with a Kenyan student named Peter, a top-scoring secondary school student who wants to be an oncologist because his little sister died of cancer — and the question of what it means to invest in one child who might save hundreds. Key topics: Venture philanthropy vs. transactional charity in education fundingTrust-based philanthropy and local leadershipDue diligence for selecting school partners (46-factor framework)Primary education as a lever for breaking generational povertyCommunity-led school models across India, Honduras, Kenya, and GuatemalaPatient capital and long-term investment in schoolsWhat families in under-resourced communities understand about educationLinks & Resources: Brighter Children: brighterchildren.orgGuest Bio: Katie Hurley Wales Katie Hurley Wales is Executive Director of Brighter Children, an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) venture philanthropy organization that funds primary education for children in marginalized communities across five countries. Brighter Children's model centers on identifying exceptional local leaders — people who already have the vision and trust of their communities — and providing long-term financial and advisory support to help them build sustainable school systems. Before Brighter Children, Katie served as Executive Director of Invest for Kids and Interim Executive Director of Luminarts Cultural Foundation, and has spent her career in the Chicago-area nonprofit sector. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Dr. Grant Atkins and Dr. Caroline Miller — a researcher who studies how educational technology gets implemented and whether it works, and a former high school teacher who left the classroom just as generative AI was beginning to reshape how students write — about the current backlash against ed tech and what's actually driving it. The conversation takes place inside Seth's long-running professional learning community, which gives it a candor that more formal interviews rarely allow. Together, Seth, Grant, and Caroline explore what's getting lumped together under "ed tech backlash" — social media, pandemic-era screen fatigue, and generative AI — and why those distinctions matter for the decisions teachers and administrators actually have to make. Early in the conversation, a detail surfaces that reframes the whole discussion: a twelve-year-old who told Seth she could tell when her teachers were using AI to write her feedback, and that it bothered her because she felt it was their job to do it themselves. They look at the research on when technology supports learning and when it substitutes for the human relationship at the center of teaching, and at the SAMR framework as a lens for evaluating whether any given tool is doing something genuinely new or just digitizing what was already there. The conversation also turns to what parents should be asking schools about technology use, and why that gets harder when it requires parents to examine their own screen habits alongside their children's. It closes on something Grant says plainly and without hedging: he doesn't think anyone knows yet what acceptable AI use looks like, and the conversation schools and families need to be having is still largely unfinished. Key topics Ed tech backlash and what's behind itSocial media, classroom tools, and AI as separate conversationsSAMR framework for evaluating technology integrationTeacher burnout and technology as workload supportParent-teacher communication about screen useAI disclosure and student-teacher trustProfessional learning communities for educatorsLinks & Resources Brookings Institution report on AI and education — Rebecca Winthrop, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, and co-author of a ~200-page report on AI risks and potential in education drawing on research from 50 countries. Note: Seth referred to her as "Rebecca Chapman" during the recording — her name is Rebecca Winthrop. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-new-direction-for-students-in-an-ai-world-prosper-prepare-protect/Justin Reich, MIT Teaching Systems Lab — researcher on ed tech hype cycles and lateral reading as a source-evaluation strategy: https://tsl.mit.edu/SAMR framework — Ruben Puentedura's model for technology integration in education (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition): https://www.3plearning.com/blog/connectingsamrmodel/Banyan Global Learning — Seth's organization, connecting K-12 classrooms to global peers through live virtual exchange programs: https://banyangloballearning.com/Equity Maps — participation-tracking tool for discussion-based classrooms: https://equitymaps.com/NoRedInk — adaptive writing and grammar platform: https://www.noredink.com/Guest Bio: Dr. Grant Atkins Dr. Grant Atkins is a researcher who studies professional development and the effectiveness of educational technology in classrooms. His work examines how ed tech tools are implemented at the school and district level and whether they achieve the learning outcomes they promise. He and Seth have been colleagues since meeting at Princeton University. Guest Bio: Dr. Caroline Miller Dr. Caroline Miller spent nearly a decade teaching advanced high school students before leaving the classroom as generative AI was beginning to reshape how students approach writing. Her teaching experience spanned discussion-based and writing-intensive classrooms, where she worked closely with students on critical thinking, source evaluation, and independent inquiry. She and Seth have been colleagues since meeting at Princeton University. About the Host About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of two podcasts: Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning and Why Distance Learning? Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores.

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Dr. Katherine M. Heavers — a high school biology teacher, evolutionary biologist, and co-author of Transforming Teaching Through Relationship-Building and Self-Reflection: Finding Our Way In — about what it actually takes to build authentic relationships in a classroom. Heavers draws on her doctoral theory of the "telling break" and 12 years of research conducted while teaching full-time to argue that the relational work great teachers do is learnable by anyone. Together, Seth and Kate explore the biology of trust — why authenticity isn't soft or sentimental, but a survival mechanism the mammalian brain has been running for 200,000 years. They talk through Kate's theory of the telling break, the moment a teacher's personal disclosure cracks open a shared space of curiosity in the room, and why that moment is at the center of learning rather than on its margins. Kate makes the case that vulnerability, emotional safety, honest feedback, and the willingness to name your own failures in front of students are all trainable skills — not personality traits — and that any teacher can be brought to them given the right conditions and inner work. The conversation ends with a genuine surprise: after three and a half years of exploring AI tools, Kate recently deleted her ChatGPT account because her teenage niece's ethics teacher changed her mind. Key topics: The telling break — what happens when a teacher steps out of instruction and becomes a person in the roomTeaching as a learnable craft vs. an innate giftThe biology of trust and why authenticity is an evolutionary strategyEmotional safety and productive struggle — how to hold both at onceSelf-reflection and inner work as professional practice, not personal disclosureConfronting bias as an ongoing relational obligationAI, cognitive offloading, and what we give up when we stop thinking for ourselvesLinks & Resources: Transforming Teaching Through Relationship-Building and Self-Reflection: Finding Our Way In — Katherine M. Heavers & Valerie Kearns, Routledge, 2024. https://www.routledge.com/Transforming-Teaching-Through-Relationship-Building-and-Self-Reflection-Finding-Our-Way-In/Heavers-Kearns/p/book/9781032798103Daring Greatly — Brené Brown (mentioned by Kate as essential reading for teachers)The Atlas of the Heart — Brené Brown (mentioned)Adam Grant and Brené Brown's collaborative content - The Curiosity Shop Podcast Grace and Frankie — Netflix series (Kate's media recommendation)"Toward a Theory of the Educational Interruption: A Conceptual Model of the Telling Break" — Katherine M. Heavers, doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University, 2012. https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/37293/Guest Bio: Dr. Katherine M. Heavers Dr. Katherine M. Heavers is a high school biology teacher at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South in New Jersey and an adjunct professor in teacher education at Rutgers University and The College of New Jersey. Her work sits at the intersection of evolutionary biology, the philosophy of education, and classroom practice — she spent 12 years earning her EdD in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education at Rutgers while teaching science full-time, developing her theory of the "telling break" along the way. She is co-author, with Valerie Kearns, of Transforming Teaching Through Relationship-Building and Self-Reflection: Finding Our Way In (Routledge, 2024). About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Dr. Maggie Broderick — academic program director of the Master of Arts in Social Emotional Learning at National University's Sanford College of Education — about teacher dispositions, the classrooms inside schools where marginalized students find belonging, and what's happening to teacher attrition when emotion labor goes unsupported. Maggie's current qualitative research centers on what she calls "hidden oases" — music rooms, art classrooms, and specialist spaces — and builds on her published work integrating SEL into the formative development of educator dispositions. Together, Seth and Maggie explore why SEL became politicized and why Maggie chose not to rebrand around the backlash, how critical thinking and perspective-taking sit alongside SEL as facets of the same whole-human education, the link between teacher emotion labor and the attrition crisis, and the role of arts and specialist classrooms as belonging infrastructure for students who don't feel at home in the rest of the building. Maggie shares an early finding from her in-progress study: many of the teachers she's interviewed told her no one had ever asked them about the students who came to school primarily because of their music or art class. Key topics "Hidden oases" — specialist classrooms as belonging infrastructureSEL across the full age span, including adult and doctoral learnersTeacher emotion labor and the attrition crisisPerspective-taking and critical thinking as parts of SELEducator dispositions and how they're formedStarting small with vetted SEL resourcesLinks & Resources Dr. Maggie Broderick — National University faculty page: https://www.nu.edu/degrees/teacher-education/faculty/margaret-broderick/Maggie on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maggie-BroderickMaggie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-broderick-19321414/International Journal of Online Graduate Education (Maggie, editor): https://joge.scholasticahq.com/Email: [email protected] (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning): https://casel.orgHarmony Academy: https://harmony-academy.orgAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA): https://www.aera.netWorld Savvy (referenced in conversation): https://worldsavvy.orgBroderick, M., & Lyn, A. E. (2022). "Integrating Social Emotional Learning Into the Formative Development of Educator Dispositions," in Dispositional Development and Assessment in Teacher Preparation Programs (S. Clemm von Hohenberg, Ed.). IGI Global. https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/integrating-social-emotional-learning-into-the-formative-development-of-educator-dispositions/308385Broderick, M. "Development and Evolution of Teacher Dispositions Framework and Assessment." IGI Global. https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/development-and-evolution-of-teacher-dispositions-framework-and-assessment/308394Guest Bio: Dr. Maggie Broderick Dr. Maggie Broderick is an academic program director and dissertation chair at National University's Sanford College of Education, where she leads the Master of Arts in Social Emotional Learning and directs the Advanced Research Center — an online hub supporting faculty and graduate-student scholarship. Her research examines educator dispositions, SEL across the full age span of learners, and the role of specialist classrooms — music, art, theater, language — as "hidden oases" for students who feel marginalized elsewhere in their schools. She holds a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education from the University of Pittsburgh and is the editor of the International Journal of Online Graduate Education. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Rushton Hurley — founder of Next Vista for Learning and Director of Innovation at Junipero Serra High School — about the annual showcase that brings student projects from Serra in California together with student projects from Parklands College in Cape Town. Rushton's claim, sharpened over years of running the Creative Solutions for the Global Good class: students aim for "good" when they know other people will see their work, and "good enough" when only the teacher will. The episode works through what changes — in design, in motivation, in resource requirements — when the audience expands. Together, Seth and Rushton explore the design of the Creative Solutions for the Global Good class, the Serra–Parklands College partnership, the iterative storytelling model that replaces the year-end capstone, AI as a tough-questions generator (not a writing tool), and the minimum viable conditions for replicating this kind of work at less-resourced schools. The episode closes with a project from a Parklands student who redesigned the desiccant sachets used in pharmaceutical packaging — the original ones can leak when saturated, and her version changes color when it crosses the threshold. Key topics Audience as motivator: "good" vs. "good enough"Iterative storytelling as pedagogy, not summative assessmentThe Serra–Parklands College partnership across continentsAI as a tough-questions generatorMinimum viable conditions for project-based learning at any schoolConcrete student projects: Scale Bridge, Fruit Share, the desiccant sachetLinks & Resources Next Vista for Learning — https://www.nextvista.orgRotary.cool — http://rotary.cool (Rushton's Rotary club, the connector to many of the showcase's global audience members)Junipero Serra High School — https://www.serrahs.com Parklands College, Cape Town — https://www.parklands.co.za/Kevin Brookhouser, The 20 Time Project — https://www.20time.org/More or Less (BBC) — Rushton's recommendation - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshdRushton's previous appearance on Make It Mindful: "Education Futurist: Rushton Hurley" — https://makeitmindful.transistor.fm/episodes/40-education-furturist-rushton-hurleyTo request access to the recorded showcase: email [email protected] Bio: Rushton Hurley Rushton Hurley is the founder of Next Vista for Learning, a nonprofit video library and student video contest platform he started in 2005, and the Director of Innovation at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, California. His work centers on giving students agency over project-based work, building partnerships between schools across continents, and treating storytelling — the act of telling and retelling a project's story to different audiences — as the primary mechanism through which students improve. He previously taught as an assistant language teacher in Japan. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. — a middle/high school teacher-turned-author and a primary educator who completed her doctorate studying working memory — about why executive functioning looks fundamentally different in grades K–3 than it does anywhere else in school. Their new co-authored book grew directly out of feedback that K–3 teachers had been handed materials written for older students and told to make them work. The episode makes the case that what happens in the primary years isn't just preparation for real learning — it is real learning, and most schools treat it as invisible. Together, Seth, Mitch, and Sarah explore what the three core executive functions — working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility — actually look like when a child is five versus eight versus twelve, and why the developmental arc across those years matters for how teachers structure everything from transitions to independent work time. Sarah draws on her years teaching emerging readers to describe how cognitive load quietly derails decoding, how visual clutter competes with attention, and why playing music with lyrics during work time is, as she puts it, "really cruel." The conversation gets genuinely interesting when Seth pushes back on inhibition — asking whether what looks like off-task behavior might just be a child doing exactly what they need — and the discussion that follows is one of the more honest treatments of classroom compliance versus developmental reality you'll hear on an education podcast. Key Topics The three core executive functions: working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibilityWhy K–3 materials can't simply be adapted from K–12 resourcesCognitive load and how instructional design either protects or depletes itThe developmental arc from preschool through third grade and what changes around grades 3–4Classroom environment design: visuals, acoustics, physical layout, and attentionRoutines as an executive functioning tool, not just a management strategyWhen off-task behavior reflects unmet developmental needs vs. instructional design failuresLinks & Resources'Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom by Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. (K–3 focus) — https://organizedbinder.com/product/ef-k3-book/  Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom by Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. (K–3 focus) — https://organizedbinder.com/product/ef-k3-book/ Executive Functions for Every Classroom (Mitch Weathers' first book, grades 3–12) — https://organizedbinder.com/product/executive-functions-for-every-classroom/Mitch Weathers' website: OrganizeBinder — https://organizedbinder.com/Guest Bios Mitch Weathers works with educators on applying executive functioning research to classroom practice. His first book focused on grades 3–12 and was widely used in school professional development. His new book, co-authored with Sarah Oberle, extends that work into the primary grades (K–3), an audience he intentionally left out of the first book because, as he says, he's not a primary teacher. He writes and consults under the OrganizeBinder brand. Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. is an early childhood educator who spent years teaching emerging readers before pursuing doctoral research on working memory. Her classroom experience — figuring out through trial and error why some things worked and others didn't — eventually met the research, and the alignment gave her a framework for anticipating where instruction breaks down before it does. She brings that practitioner-to-researcher perspective to the book. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is a former classroom teacher and the founder of Banyan Global Learning. Make It Mindful explores how people, cultures, technologies, cognitive processes, and school systems shape what happens in classrooms around the world.

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth talks with Jessica Werner, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Northshore Learning, about why teacher burnout is better understood as a systems problem than a personal one — and what happens when schools try to fix it without addressing the foundations that are already shaky. Jessica draws on her doctoral research in Uganda, where a policy expanding secondary school access flooded classrooms without providing additional support, and connects that experience directly to what she's seeing now in U.S. schools facing school choice expansion, teacher shortages, and the pressure to adopt every new initiative at once. Together, Seth and Jessica explore why measuring teacher wellbeing is so difficult and why qualitative judgment still matters, how cultural context shapes what counts as a behavior problem and what motivates students, what schedules and workloads quietly signal to teachers about how much their effectiveness actually matters, and why adding initiatives on top of weak foundations accelerates burnout rather than solving it. Jessica also shares a specific example from a school in Colombia where an American teacher adapted her math instruction to work with — rather than against — the social, collective culture of her students, offering a concrete picture of what culturally responsive intervention looks like in practice. Key topics: Teacher efficacy as a component of job satisfaction and retentionThe limits of quantitative measurement for wellbeingCultural differences in student motivation: intrinsic vs. extrinsicSchedule design and its unintended impact on teachersAddition without subtraction: the workload problemSchool choice policy and the costs of rapid enrollment growthNeuroscience basics that translate directly into classroom managementSchool-student "match" as a framework for the future of school choiceLinks & Resources: Northshore Learning — coaching, school partnerships, and on-demand courses for educators: northshorelearning.orgJessica Werner on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessica-werner-ph-d-818032163Northshore Learning YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCznAU47jszmmJyFBWd_1LvwHidden Brain podcast with Shankar Vedantam (recommended by Jessica): hiddenbrain.orgJustin Reich, MIT Teaching Systems Lab — referenced by Seth on "addition by subtraction" in schools: https://makeitmindful.transistor.fm/episodes/76-experiment-with-humility-teaching-in-the-ai-evidence-gap-with-justin-reichGuest Bio: Jessica Werner, Ph.D. Jessica Werner is the founder and CEO of Northshore Learning, where she works with schools in the U.S. and internationally to support teacher effectiveness and student behavior through personalized coaching, group training, and on-demand professional development. Her work is grounded in neuroscience and centers on what actually allows teachers to feel effective — and what systematically undermines that feeling over time. Jessica holds a Ph.D. in education, with doctoral research focused on the implementation challenges of Uganda's universal secondary education policy, and has over 20 years of experience as a classroom teacher, professor of education, and consultant. About the Host: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators. See banyangloballearning.com.

In this episode of Make It Mindful, Seth Fleischauer talks with international school consultant Chris O'Shaughnessy about narrative therapy — what it is, why it matters, and how its techniques can quietly transform the way educators approach empathy, resilience, and cross-cultural understanding. What begins as a conversation about storytelling opens into something much bigger: a practical framework for helping students separate fact from interpretation, build emotional muscle in measurable steps, and find common ground even when values genuinely clash. Along the way, Chris draws on everything from gym metaphors to the Enneagram to a sociology study involving voluntary self-electrocution to make the case that the oldest human art form — telling stories — might also be one of the most powerful tools in a teacher's toolkit. Together, Seth and Chris explore the neuroscience of narrative, the taxonomy of resilience, and what it looks like to introduce intentional discomfort into a classroom — including the surprisingly radical act of letting kids be bored. Key Topics Discussed: What narrative therapy actually is — and why it's less about therapy and more about learning to hold your own story at arm's lengthThe description → evaluation → interpretation framework, and how a photograph of a woman in a wedding dress teaches you more about assumptions than any lecture couldWhy our brains prefer a complete story to an accurate one — and what that costs usThe "gym as intentional inefficiency" model: how to introduce beneficial discomfort in measurable, safe stepsDr. Wong's taxonomy of resilience — cognitive, behavioral, emotional, relational, and motivational — and why giving students language for these differences is itself an act of empowermentWhat to do when cross-cultural conflict isn't a misunderstanding — it's a genuine clash of valuesThe Enneagram as a tool for digging beneath belief systems to find the shared motivations underneathWhy boredom might be the most underrated creative catalyst in schools — and the sociology study that proves people would rather electrocute themselves than sit with itAwe as an emerging opportunity in education (Seth's answer to Chris's lightning round question)Guest Bio: Chris O'Shaughnessy is an international school consultant whose work takes him into schools across cultures and contexts around the world. Drawing on a background in sociology, he helps educators build the skills — empathy, resilience, cross-cultural communication — that don't show up on a standardized test but determine everything about how students navigate the world. He is based at chris-o.com. Host Bio: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of the Make It Mindful podcast. His work focuses on global learning, cultural competency, and the evolving role of technology in education. Through Banyan Global Learning, he develops live virtual learning experiences that connect students to new people, places, and ways of thinking. Episode Links: Chris O'Shaughnessy's website: chris-o.comUnselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World — Michele BorbaSticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy — Emily BazelonProject Hail Mary — Andy WeirThe Homework Machine podcast — Justin Reich, MIT Teaching Systems Lab