0:00

Smarties, Steph and I are ridiculously

0:04

excited for you to hear this episode. This

0:07

episode is a master class with executive functioning

0:11

expert, Mary d Sklar. Mary d is the

0:14

founder of the see my Time program. You can

0:17

learn more about it in this episode and

0:20

also by going to her website, www.executiveflexdingsuccess

0:24

dotcom. There are so many goodies in this

0:27

episode that it actually became impossible for us

0:30

to write an appropriate introduction to these next few episodes. Of course,

0:35

we plan to just do 1 episode. We've

0:37

now split this conversation into 2 episodes, so you'll hear the first

0:41

part this week and the next part next

0:44

week in episode 323. I don't wanna waste any more time, but

0:48

I do wanna let you know that we

0:50

did do a Patreon extended conversation

0:53

with Mary d. We will be releasing that

0:56

episode next week

0:58

because you really do need to listen to

1:00

the entire conversation before listening to that Patreon.

1:03

If you want to hear that extended conversation,

1:06

believe me, you do, go ahead

1:09

and make sure you are a $5 a

1:12

month monthly subscriber. Obviously, that $5 a month goes to support

1:16

the podcast and the work that we're doing here, and we thank you through these extended

1:20

conversations. You can go back as long as

1:23

you want. They're all there and other things

1:25

that we throw up there for you guys as well. Again, to become a patron and

1:30

listen to our Patreon, go to www.

1:33

Patreon.com/learn smarterpodcast.

1:35

And that extended conversation with Mary d will

1:38

be live next week. Let's dig in. You

1:41

want to learn faster, but sometimes working harder

1:46

is just not the answer. You have to

1:49

learn smarter, the educational therapy podcast.

1:56

Hi, smarties. Welcome to episode 322

1:58

of learn smarter, the educational therapy podcast. I'm

2:01

Stephanie Pitts. And I'm Rachel Capp. And today

2:05

we are thrilled to have

2:08

executive functioning expert,

2:11

Mary d Sklar with us. Hi, Mary d.

2:15

Hi. Thanks for coming on. This is very

2:17

exciting to have you. A treat

2:20

for us. Well, it's a treat for me

2:22

because educational therapists will help get me get

2:24

started. Okay? I saw the value in my

2:26

work when before I even had it published. So I have a soft spot in my

2:30

heart for educational therapists. Well, we both have used your work and

2:35

your resources over the years, so we're just thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with

2:40

you. But why don't you take a second and introduce

2:43

yourself to our audience? Explain a little bit

2:45

about who you are and what you do. I am primarily an educator. That was my

2:49

background. I was a classroom teacher in a galaxy

2:52

far, far away. That's how I describe myself,

2:56

But I became very interested in executive functioning

3:01

a long time ago, really before we even had the term, because

3:06

I have a brain that has executive functioning

3:09

challenges, and I did not understand that about myself

3:14

and speech pathologist.

3:16

I was running a program at a local elementary school to teach volunteers

3:21

to teach at risk kids how to read. And I ended up, because of speech pathologist

3:26

on campus, taking some training with doctor Ellen

3:29

Arber at the University of Portland, who was also a speech pathologist.

3:32

And at the time, that was 1994.

3:35

She had a very interesting concept. She felt that

3:39

our behavior was directly tied to the way our brains

3:42

are wired. But what you guys most of the audience

3:45

in the room are too young to understand. I'll be 71 soon.

3:49

That was woo woo in 94. Okay. Literally it was woo woo.

3:54

We didn't have the brain scans. We didn't understand the brain, anything like we do today.

3:59

In fact, her accrediting organization, ASHA, they wanted

4:02

to kick her out because she wasn't, you know, I was like, you're going into a

4:05

sphere that has nothing to do with speaking language. Okay.

4:08

But Ellen just have to be brilliant. Okay? And she was putting together

4:13

the brain and behavior differences. I know this from hindsight. She was really

4:18

focusing on a lot of the the students we

4:20

now would call neurodivergent. We used to say, spectrum

4:25

folks. Okay? That was really who was really

4:28

intriguing her at the time, but we didn't have names

4:31

for those either. Okay? We just didn't have

4:33

terms to to describe people. Anyway, so I got into

4:37

that. She helped me start to understand my

4:40

own brain and the connection, which was marvelous

4:43

because it took away the guilt and the shame that I had for years.

4:46

I described myself for over 40 years as

4:49

an underachieving procrastinator, which is a terrible moniker to hang around

4:55

your neck. I was always late. I would scream at the kids that came out the

4:58

door in the morning. My house is welcome to your pile. So I would show up

5:01

on the wrong day at the wrong time. I've been successful in my life, but I

5:06

always felt like everything was gonna come crashing

5:08

down. You know? There was no sense of

5:10

of centeredness or self esteem connected to what

5:13

I was doing in the world. So I got into it because of my

5:17

own brain, and then my son had challenges.

5:20

And Ellen helped me think about time very

5:23

differently. She told me, after spending a whole week with her and

5:27

one of the seminar things, I had gone up to her and I said, Ellen, I

5:30

came here to teach kids how to learn to read. That's what I was looking for.

5:34

It was information about brain and reading. Right.

5:36

And I said, but you've given me this glamour of insight into my own behavior connected

5:41

to time. I'll pay you anything. You know,

5:43

just anything. And, so she had me draw, she said, oh,

5:48

I've confused you enough for this week. I

5:50

will, give you a free hour. But what I

5:52

want you to do is to bring with you

5:55

a drawing of a picture of what you need to do in that

5:59

following 7 days. Basically, a plan for your

6:02

week. K. And so I drew this picture,

6:04

which, since this is all audio, I'm just

6:07

gonna have to describe it to you. I

6:09

drew this picture that took me 2 hours

6:11

to draw, and it looks like total chaos.

6:14

It's just like you know, it's got some images in it, but it's lots of words

6:17

and it's I mean, it's just a mess. And Ellen took one look at it, and

6:20

she said, oh, dear. Yeah. Oh, dear. It's what your brain felt

6:25

like. That's exactly I show that picture all

6:28

the time to people. Yes. And they just

6:30

nod their heads going, yeah. Yeah. That's my

6:32

brain. It's relatable. That's what that's happens to

6:35

me. So she had given me this advice

6:37

at the end of an hour. We refined what it took to, draw a picture for

6:41

the week rather than have it be chaos

6:45

and take me 2 hours. But at the end of the hour, I said, Ellen,

6:48

wait a minute. There's way more to my

6:51

problem than drawing a picture. I read every time management book, planning book,

6:55

calendar system, you name it. I was brought

6:58

home a book from the library, the time on the spine. I came home and my

7:01

husband looked at it and he goes, honey, why did you bring this home? I said,

7:05

it's about time. And he goes, honey, it has to do with, like, you know, physics,

7:08

you know, like deep space physics. And I said, really? I mean, I'm I

7:14

hadn't read the subs subtitle. I just grabbed

7:16

it because it's had time on it. Okay. Sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah. And so she said,

7:21

gave me this advice, and I want everybody, you included and all the people in the

7:24

audience to wrap your lovely minds around this.

7:26

This is her advice. She whips out her finger. That's kinda who Ellen is. She's a

7:30

brilliant woman. But she kinda boom in her face boom.

7:33

She goes out her finger. She goes, go home.

7:36

Take care of yourself in time

7:39

and space, and come back and see me.

7:41

Got that? Cool. Take yourself in time and space, and

7:45

we'll talk. And so I felt like I'd gone to

7:48

see the guru, and I got a Buddhist

7:50

conundrum. You know? How do I what does that mean? And

7:55

it was you know, time and space, time and space, time

7:58

and space over and over again because I

8:00

forget things that people said to me pretty

8:02

fast. And then my car was a long way from her office when I parked. Yeah.

8:07

So you're just repeating it to yourself. This is the day you put cell phones. You

8:10

know? Put it together enough to write it

8:12

down. Right? You know? It's just like it was time and space time and space. And

8:16

even if you had written it down, you would have lost the paper anyway. So, like,

8:19

you could. It would never have made the half a

8:22

mile to the car. Yeah. So time and

8:24

space, time and space. It took me a year to figure it

8:27

out. She gave me the clues of time and

8:30

space, and she gave me the clues that it was all connected to my brain

8:34

And that my brain her theory back then I don't know how

8:38

I haven't worked with her for quite a number of years.

8:41

She described me as having a visual language

8:44

system. Okay? Not visual learner. It's a different thing. Okay?

8:48

It's more how you hold your interior language.

8:52

And so I don't store things auditorially

8:55

well at all. I just don't. If you

8:57

do if you have a sound brain or a picture brain, as I would describe it

9:01

in my program, I am so far on the picture side, I have no sound. It's

9:04

like I can't sing any songs. I don't know the words

9:07

to songs. If you start singing next to me, I can match pitches,

9:11

but I can't sing any of the Beatles

9:13

songs or the Beach Boys songs that I listen to. Interesting.

9:16

I can't remember them. Okay. The only songs I remember are some Girl

9:20

Scout songs that I sang over and over

9:22

and over and over and over again. At

9:25

an early age. Uh-huh. Very early age. Other

9:27

than that, nothing sticks. Okay. So, anyway, time and space got it figured

9:31

out. And then my son had issues.

9:34

His teacher 4th grader's teacher said he's being

9:36

a complete flake, not turning anything in. Bright kid. No production.

9:41

So he and I worked on paper management

9:44

because, my son was one of those kids who

9:48

was walking around a black hole. It's like he lost everything. You know? It didn't matter

9:52

what it was, jackets, shoes, books. He couldn't

9:54

hold on to a piece of paper from his desk to the teacher's desk. You know?

9:57

It was not impossible. And so I worked on it from the

10:00

point of view of what his brain needed

10:03

to see. Okay?

10:05

And put together a little system. And after a few weeks, I said, Josh, is this

10:08

helping you any? And he paused. He was a very thoughtful

10:13

little 4th grade kid. Now he's a very

10:15

thoughtful 39 year old. Mhmm. He he said,

10:18

yeah. I'm not so stressful. I'm not getting

10:20

trouble for not turning on my work. You

10:22

know? And, so then I ended up starting

10:25

to work with my friends' kids where they're

10:27

all hitting middle school, and, they've been

10:31

reasonably successful in elementary school, most of them,

10:34

because the elementary school teachers give a lot of support. Yep. And you have one teacher?

10:38

One teacher, one system to understand.

10:41

And when they hit middle school, boom, you know, the wheels fell. Yep. So that's who

10:45

I thought I was gonna work with, and

10:49

people just started showing up on my doorstep,

10:52

literally. It was all word-of-mouth. I never advertised for

10:56

15 years. I had a private practice of

11:00

working with, I was a dyslexia specialist working

11:02

with dyslexia, making math real,

11:05

and, other language stuff I had learned from

11:07

Ellen, help supporting written language. So I was

11:09

being net doing that after school. But these

11:12

kids and these families, started showing up who were getting things done.

11:17

And back then, we called it poor study skills. I mean, that was the

11:21

only that was the only phrase that they kind of onto that behavior.

11:26

So these people showed up, these kids. Initially,

11:28

I just showed worked with the kids. But then I went and heard a behavioral,

11:34

pediatrician speak, and he talked about the brain and adolescent

11:39

behavior. And that was my first, like, brain piece

11:42

of it. I'm like, oh, that's why the kids have it sitting in

11:47

my room with me because they look like

11:49

they've got it right. But when they go

11:51

home, they don't transfer it. Right. Until it

11:54

all falls apart. So at that juncture, I

11:57

made a decision, which I've stuck to all these years, is I never work with kids

12:01

by themselves if they are living at home.

12:05

I won't do it. K. 1 or more

12:07

parents have to come there. They have to be part of the picture.

12:10

Because from a developmental perspective,

12:13

those brains you can teach teach in quotation

12:16

marks. You can talk to them all you want about strategies,

12:19

but their brains, because of development,

12:22

it's not gonna stick. You know? It's a

12:25

long term process, these executive functioning skills. And

12:28

so these brains need support for all the transition points when things

12:33

change. When they go from middle school to high

12:35

school, high school to college, college to work,

12:38

if somebody's not there helping them to scaffold

12:40

that transition, their brains do not necessarily

12:43

transfer the strategies that worked in situation a to

12:47

the new situation b. It's very interesting. Some pulled off, other

12:52

ones really, really can't. Okay. So you have

12:55

to have parents involved because parents don't even realize that they need to be

12:59

that kind of support, and the apple isn't far far from the tree. Mhmm. Have you

13:03

listened to our podcast before? And, you know, so the parents come and

13:09

so, anyway, for 15 years, people showed up.

13:13

And I created the program that I now

13:15

teach, which is called seeing my time.

13:18

And now how do I teach these people?

13:21

What do I understand about time and space? Because you see, my approach to executive functioning

13:26

is somewhat unique, unless people have been exposed

13:29

to some of my work. Okay? Right. It's

13:31

that I'm an educator. I'm a reading specialist.

13:36

I know how to teach in a very carefully

13:39

scaffolded step by step program

13:43

so that learning happens. It's hands on, multisensory

13:47

so that learning happens. You know? And most

13:52

people miss that. Okay? They don't get it. It was like

13:56

a couple years ago, I was a keynote speaker at an event for a private school

14:01

consortium. And a couple of teachers, bless their hearts,

14:03

were talking about executive functioning. And I thought,

14:05

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. Because if

14:08

they had got it, I can

14:10

retire. I could be done. You know? Yeah. And

14:13

I sat there listening to them, and I just put my head in my hands, and

14:16

I'm like, oh, I don't have it. You're you're like, you can't retire. Sure. Just kidding.

14:22

They're doing the same old stuff wrong. I can't quit. Okay? So I'm still working.

14:28

We're still educating teachers. But so I got into it that way.

14:31

That was my history. And to my utter surprise,

14:35

here I am today. It was a therapist and speech pathologist

14:39

who knew my work, who were sending me people, neuropsych sent all kinds of people sent

14:43

me people, and they all wanted me to publish the work. And I was like, who'd

14:47

buy it? All of them. Was like, who

14:49

made this around my dining room table? You know, I'm not a PhD person from some

14:53

university. You know? But I was really doing research, and I

14:57

was applying what I understood from a learning

14:59

perspective. And I'm also a learner.

15:03

I'm always learning. Okay. So I turn over

15:06

every rock possible to expand my personal knowledge

15:09

and spent a lot of years and a lot of

15:11

money educating myself about the brain and executive

15:14

functioning and all you know, I've hung out with all the big names and, you know,

15:18

done training with them and everything else. And so what my brain is good at,

15:22

it has executive functioning challenges, but

15:25

it's a very creative brain, and it is

15:27

a brain that synthesizes well. Yeah. It, like,

15:30

takes concepts from very different domains

15:33

and pulls them together, which I know is why saying my time is as successful as

15:37

it is. Yeah. So yeah. So I just ended up here

15:40

kind of by totally by accident. I didn't

15:42

think I would ever be an entrepreneur of sorts. We train people now around the world

15:46

teaching, say, my time. We have programs for educators. We have programs for parents. We do

15:50

distance. We do local. We do groups. We

15:52

do, planners. You know, all kinds of things that

15:56

I never imagined happening, but all makes sense

15:59

as I look back over the back. So that's a quick dip into the whole thing,

16:04

but I just I love my work, and I'm still doing it because I have satisfaction.

16:08

And now I primarily work with adults myself

16:12

because I don't have the energy to deal with teenagers and parents after 3 Yeah. In

16:15

the afternoon. I just can't do it anymore. I put

16:19

in my time. Now it's up to the rest of us.

16:21

So I guess my first sort of question

16:24

for you is, what do you wish

16:27

people and that can be parents,

16:29

teachers, a therapist, learning specialist,

16:32

whoever you wanna make that people be. What

16:35

do you wish people understood about time? Well, go back to the concept

16:39

that Arvin said about time and space.

16:43

People think time is stretchy.

16:47

K? That sometimes it seems to go slow and

16:50

sometimes it seems to go fast. You know, we've got all the circumstances where it slows

16:54

down and it goes Yeah. Where did the

16:56

time go? Boom. Gone. Yeah. It doesn't. It's

16:58

just heartbeats. Okay. So time doesn't stretch, so you can do

17:03

more, after dinner, I'll finish it. This weekend,

17:06

I'll get it all done. You know? It's not gonna stretch for you. Everything takes

17:11

a certain amount of heartbeats. K? You can't be, like, superficial. You can't

17:16

multitask and make it all better. No. It's finite. It's very, very finite.

17:22

And there are 3 truths of time in my program,

17:25

seeing my time. And the third one is the way you use your time equals your

17:29

life. Yep. Heavy. Right? Yeah. Wow.

17:32

Okay. What it is, okay, is that our

17:35

choices we make every day about how we use our time

17:38

equals the total sum of our lives. You

17:41

know? So knowing that time takes up space,

17:43

that it is the most valuable, most valuable asset you have in your life,

17:48

and you have no idea how much of it you've got. Yeah. K. We don't choose

17:52

how much time we get to be here. K.

17:55

So that would be my time thing is that people are unrealistic

17:58

about what they can do in a given space of time. So you have to teach

18:02

them how to figure out how long things take to do.

18:06

But then the other component that was not in my mind

18:10

when I originally wrote Seeing My Time.

18:13

For many years, I didn't really understand this.

18:16

But the more and more I learned about the brain, the more I realized

18:20

that when people wanna talk about time management,

18:23

which is kind of what's under, like, tell me about time. It's connected to time management.

18:26

How do I get everything done? How can I juggle this stuff?

18:29

You'll never get good at time management unless

18:32

you understand your brain and you understand

18:37

the impact of your emotional brain, your limbic

18:40

system, because your emotional brain,

18:44

it controls everything. We are not logical thinking

18:47

people. Okay? We are actually emotional. All information

18:50

enters our brain through our limbic system, all

18:52

sensory information. And if our

18:55

brain is at peace and calm and the world seems safe, then the amygdala,

19:00

which we're gonna focus on in the brain, and the limbic system, that's like the security

19:04

guard. It's evaluating everything that comes in. Am

19:07

I safe or not? Okay. If they make those as I'm safe,

19:11

then that information goes into your brain and you can make good choices because you're accessing

19:16

what I call your wise brain, your prefrontal

19:18

cortex. But if there's something in the environment

19:22

that sets off the amygdala, then it becomes what

19:26

I call the bullying in the brain. Some people call it the watch dog or something

19:28

like that. There's different names for it. I call it the bully because it activates

19:33

a chemical response in your brain that shuts

19:35

down communication between the neurons in your brain to get

19:39

access to your prefrontal cortex. So you're operating out of fight or flight,

19:44

okay, on a freeze component, and this is one nobody talks about, desire.

19:51

I want to. I don't want to. Yeah. Nobody talks about that. Okay. So you

19:56

have to get past Because if you can't get out of that,

20:08

if you're only acting out of that, you'll

20:10

never get good with time management. You have to be able to understand your brain.

20:14

So at this point in time, when I'm

20:16

working with people, like, we're always telling, I just give you strategies, a, to understand your

20:20

brain. Because when I teach saying my time, it's

20:23

a typically a 10 hour course. And the first three hours, I don't even

20:28

talk about time. We're always talking about the

20:31

brain, the why you act the way that

20:33

you act. And then I'm giving them ways

20:36

of thinking about their behavior, thinking about their

20:39

choices, understanding their brain. I have to lay the

20:42

foundation, and that's what people skip.

20:46

They skip the foundation. Let's go to the strategies here. Use this timer. Make this list.

20:51

Use this planner. You know, it'll all work.

20:54

No. Because you're dealing with brains that are wounded.

20:58

If you end up with somebody who is struggling, who has been struggling in

21:03

school presently or in their past, struggling with work,

21:06

and these are neurodivergent folks of the whole gamut. Okay? Those people

21:10

are wounded, and the reason they're wounded is

21:13

that they have an integrity issue.

21:16

They have failed. They have let themselves down, and they've let

21:20

the people around them down. They haven't met

21:23

expectations, and so they're very defensive.

21:27

And if they stay in defensive

21:29

mode, that's in their emotional brain,

21:33

they cannot change. It's fascinating. They cannot change.

21:38

And my work because I'm not a therapist,

21:40

but what I'm doing is a kind of

21:43

cognitive behavioral therapy where it's like, you have

21:45

to get them past that stuck point.

21:48

Mhmm. You have to get them to this

21:50

little space of time where they get a

21:53

glimmer of hope of hope. I can get better.

21:58

Mhmm. And it's pretty miraculous

22:01

when that happens. I have an adult client right now. Oh

22:05

my gosh. This gentleman and his intake form, it says,

22:08

you know, other diagnoses. You know, what what do you got? Yeah.

22:12

You have to look up one of them because I'd never seen that. I'd never seen

22:15

those letter combinations before. What is that? K.

22:18

This poor man, he let him he says, I'm just broken. I'm broken. I can't be

22:22

fixed. And he's, like, 54 or something like

22:25

that. Brilliant. Okay. Such a wonderful mind,

22:31

but no self-concept of being able to be capable

22:35

because he was always told, you're not living up to your potential.

22:39

You know, you're being lazy. What blah blah

22:41

blah blah. So it's been really interesting.

22:44

Little by little, I'm getting him

22:46

to to I had him smile. Mhmm. You

22:49

know? I hope you're alright. But little by

22:51

little, he's beginning to adapt and believe. It's

22:54

a tiny thing. But he's using metacognition because

22:56

you have to change people's way of thinking. That's the other thing about this time thing.

22:59

Yeah. I can't change you. You know? I can't change anybody.

23:02

And this is for the educators out there, for the ed therapist.

23:06

Folks, step off your pedestal. You don't change

23:08

anybody. Okay? Yep. They change themselves.

23:12

Mhmm. You set up the situation

23:14

and help them develop that metacognition.

23:17

That's thinking about your thinking. You've thinking about,

23:19

you know, why am I making these choices?

23:21

You help them start to analyze it, and

23:24

then you give them the the wings. It's like I said, you know, I like to

23:27

send them out the door and and they're gone. They're flying at that point. You know?

23:30

It's tentatively, you know, you don't get fixed

23:32

overnight, but you've given them the underlying skills.

23:35

So time is really complicated. It's invisible,

23:38

so you have to make it concrete and real spatial. You have to help people think

23:41

of it spatially. So you have to make it concrete and visible when you're talking about

23:45

it, when you're working with it. And then you have to have to understand that their

23:49

emotional brain gets in the way of their

23:51

decision making when it comes to their choices. Complex stuff.

23:55

I have a can you say that again? Making them understand

23:59

that their behavior is tied

24:02

to their emotional brain so that if they

24:05

have control over that emotional brain, if they're

24:07

aware of their emotional brain, then they can use metacognition,

24:12

thinking about their thinking, to override

24:15

that other voice, that negative voice that says

24:18

I can't, I don't, I never. Yeah. Steph, why did you ask her to

24:22

repeat that? Because I just thought it was powerful. Yeah. This is complicated work, you guys,

24:26

and I think that's the challenge. I mean, from my perspective, everybody and their brother is

24:30

an executive functioning coach right now. Because 10

24:32

years ago, LDA conference in, like,

24:36

2010, 11, 12, and put set my little

24:38

booth up, my company's executive functioning success, and

24:40

I sat there with my books. And I had people on the LDA board come by

24:43

and say, what is this? You know, it wasn't that long ago, you

24:47

guys. Mm-mm. And 2 years later, it was the

24:51

headliner. Right? Yeah. You know? But what happened historically

24:56

is that executive functioning back then, people got

24:59

it. It was a bandwagon for a brief period of time. It was a little band

25:01

wagon. You know, education is full of the buzzwords. Right? Yep. Totally. I'll just get on

25:05

this bandwagon. Okay. It didn't last very long, but it was

25:08

set for those kids. Yep. Okay. It was

25:12

all about those kids, the kids on IEPs,

25:14

the kids up 504s. Alright. So what changed,

25:19

I had created a program for,

25:22

classroom teachers, a program called building executive function skills in

25:26

the classroom. And talking about labors of love, you know,

25:29

you guys are talking about your work being a labor of love.

25:31

I wanted to create a professional development program

25:35

that I could share with classroom teachers of everything

25:39

I wish I had known Mhmm. About the brain and learning before I

25:44

ever entered a classroom. If only I had known that. So I

25:48

put my heart and soul on 6 months of my life into creating this program.

25:51

So this was 7, almost 8 years ago now.

25:54

And what happened then? The bottom fell out of funding for professional

25:59

development. It disappeared from school budgets.

26:04

Gone. Around the country, particularly in Oregon, they

26:06

took away the requirement for continuing ed

26:09

because they were trying to save money because districts were funding teachers due to professional training,

26:13

which is such a tragedy because I learned so much

26:16

always, you know, keeping my credential current for

26:19

professional development. Anyway, so I had this beautiful

26:21

course, and a year later, Portland State University didn't

26:25

even have a summer professional development program anymore

26:28

for teachers. And I was like, oh, yeah. I was

26:31

working to it. So it sat there and kind of languished. We left it on the

26:34

on the website, but, you know, we were really happy if we got 5 people to

26:37

find us. You know? Yep. And then along

26:40

came COVID. Okay.

26:44

And COVID really switched things around because

26:49

it was so hard on educators, so hard on families.

26:52

Oh my gosh. Those 1st 3 months, I

26:55

had parents and kids screaming at each other

26:57

and crying all the time. You know what I mean? It was a mess. And so

27:01

it was crazy, all this distance learning, all the stressors. Well, if you stop and think

27:04

about what I'd said earlier about the emotional

27:06

brain, right, our brains, the world's brains, okay,

27:12

were all on high alert thinking we might

27:15

die. And so we forget about it. We're really

27:18

good about putting history out of our minds.

27:20

We're only interested in the present. Not that long ago, you know, there were mass graves

27:24

in New York City. Okay. And so

27:27

it was this time of just total upheaval.

27:30

Everybody was struggling in the education world. Parents

27:32

were struggling in the education world. Then things started to settle down again,

27:38

and I got a call from a local private school that I've done different trainings with

27:42

through the years. They called and said, Mary

27:44

d, can you come and talk to us

27:47

again about executive functioning for a professional development

27:51

class? And it had been a couple of years

27:53

since I'd been there. I said, yeah. Sure. That had to be really close to my

27:56

house, and so I was like, I'm willing to get up and go. You're you're it's

27:59

a mile away from my house. And I got there, and they were almost all the

28:03

same teachers. Okay? And some of those teachers had taken

28:06

my courses. What am I gonna tell you

28:09

guys? You know, there's nothing earth shatteringly different

28:11

about executive functioning and the time span.

28:14

They, the audience, was different. They now saw

28:18

that executive functioning impacted all of their students

28:23

and impacted them themselves.

28:26

Because what happens it's very interesting. I heard

28:29

this at a conference where anxiety is an emotion. Alright? It's part of

28:33

the sympathetic nervous system responses or parasympathetic. Yes.

28:36

But, anyway, it's a nerve response.

28:39

So anxiety emotion. When we are under high anxiety,

28:43

it has a negative impact on working memory.

28:47

Okay. It diminishes our working memory capacity.

28:50

Well, working memory is critical

28:53

for all of our executive functions.

28:56

So when my neuropsych friends put it this

28:59

way, if all of your executive functioning skills, and

29:02

I'm talking about things like goal directed persistence,

29:06

sustained attention, time management,

29:09

planning an organization. That's just to name some of them. If

29:13

all of those skills are pathways or highways

29:17

in your prefrontal cortex, the the part of

29:19

your brain behind your forehead, Okay? If those

29:21

are pathways, working memory is the tunnel that all those

29:25

pathways, those highways have to use. So if

29:28

your working memory capacity is smaller, then not

29:30

all the highways can get through. There's conversion

29:33

at the block. It's got stuck. Well, during that COVID time, everybody was experiencing

29:38

that high anxiety, and everybody was struggling. I had my friends

29:42

who were good executive functioners or fallen apart.

29:47

And they were like, what happened to me? I used to be able to do all

29:50

this stuff. How come I can't finish a book? You know? How come I'm showing up

29:53

late? How come I can't do x, y, and z? So that anxiety went way up

29:56

and production went down with working memory. So

29:59

it's fascinating. So the teachers were sitting there

30:02

really relating to the fact that no longer

30:04

was it executive functioning about them.

30:07

It was about all of us. Yep.

30:10

It's about all of our choices every day.

30:13

So what was fascinating to me was that

30:16

the enrollment in my courses just went boom.

30:19

Okay. So now we have very full, robust courses

30:23

of amazing teachers, okay,

30:26

who are applying this to all subject matters across the curriculums in

30:31

different age groups. It's amazing. It's wonderful.

30:34

It took a long time for that to happen. It took years for it to come,

30:38

but it's really rewarding because that's what executive

30:41

functioning is, is it's part of our choices.

30:43

It's all about our choices. And if we understand our brain, then we have choice.

30:48

We can actually have that conversation, and we can maximize our potential. That's my

30:52

mission in life, is to help people maximize their potential. Each of us have a

30:56

unique potential. Each of us have a unique brain.

30:58

And how do you figure out how to hack it? That's what I tell people. I

31:01

say hack your brain. Don't let it get in the way. Who's in charge? You or

31:04

your brain? You know? They look at me like, what?

31:07

Mhmm. Yeah. So we talk about

31:12

time and not letting it control you, but

31:14

you controlling it and production and the ability

31:18

to do what you need to do, when you

31:21

need to do it, and how you need to do it, and Where to do it.

31:24

Where to do it. And the difference of

31:27

want and need because that is a lot of when the

31:31

parents call and say the trigger word of lazy that we all

31:36

feel is just so

31:39

constantly reminding everyone, the parents that I speak

31:42

to, that if your child could, they would. Right. So

31:45

I'm sort of interested in when you're talking

31:48

to the teachers about this, what have you noticed

31:53

how they have started to approach that from your courses?

31:58

Well, I have 2 courses. Okay? Okay. And

32:02

one course was originally designed. It's called Teaching

32:05

Seeing My Time. It goes with the workbook.

32:07

Okay? It's a Mhmm. The curriculum, basically.

32:11

And the market for that, originally,

32:13

I saw as ed therapists. Okay? And so ed therapists use it, speech

32:18

paths use it, OTs use it. There's a whole bunch of different people who use it,

32:21

but I didn't see that in the classroom

32:24

too much. Mhmm. The reason

32:29

being, schools don't wanna spend any money on workbooks.

32:31

Right? And it would be time

32:36

in the school schedule is so oppressive to

32:38

teachers. They've obviously, all this curriculum, all this

32:40

stuff I have to cover. I Yeah. Add one more weird thing to my life, and

32:43

it won't work. Whereas I'm sitting here going, oh my god.

32:46

If you just invested 10 hours upfront in

32:48

September, October, your whole school year would go

32:51

so much better. Okay? It's front loading a

32:53

calendar right there. Just can't do it. It's

32:55

really interesting. One of the schools that has

32:58

consist a public school, okay, which is rare,

33:00

k, because of funding. The one public school that is consistently

33:05

still using Seeing My Time workbooks,

33:08

okay, and my planners,

33:11

okay, is a relatively poor district. When I came to speak, I

33:15

charged them $500, okay, which is pretty darn low for a

33:18

speaking engagement, and I drove to get there.

33:20

Okay? Like, an hour halfway. Yeah. When I

33:22

got there, I was in the auditorium, small school, middle school. They had to split.

33:27

The the middle school budget had $250,

33:29

the principal, and they got 250 from the

33:32

superintendent's fund, okay, to come up with $500.

33:35

Alright. Mhmm. The reason why they still use it you

33:38

know who was in the room? The superintendent.

33:42

Mhmm. He was in the room. So it's

33:44

a leadership issue in part. Getting a hold

33:46

of them is really hard. Yeah. Okay.

33:49

If you guys figure it out, let me know. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Because they're the leadership

33:53

at the top. Like I said, professional development

33:56

training has just plummeted. You know, we used to be invited to public schools all the

33:59

time. I did a lot of training with lots of people, and the money just dried

34:02

up and disappeared, you know, prior to COVID

34:04

even. So I didn't think peach people would come

34:07

teachers would end up in teaching Saint My Time. That has changed

34:11

in the last year. I have a lot

34:14

of classroom teachers and learning specialists

34:17

Mhmm. Taking that course. And that is wonderful because, again, that's very

34:22

carefully scaffolded. You know? And it's a program in a

34:25

box. You know what I mean? This is like, follow this. You do this, and it

34:29

will work. Okay? You will have results. So then the other course, the building effect

34:33

is functioning skills in the classroom, that came about because of an educator

34:39

who took my previous first course,

34:41

and she wanted to put more stuff about the brain and learning in, which I didn't

34:45

really have the background in. So I didn't

34:47

feel like at that point in time, I was able to speak to that. You know,

34:51

how would I do that? Mhmm. And she happened to be a, you know, a Stanford

34:54

PhD person. And she go, oh, Mary d, we can

34:57

do this. And she kind of, you know, took me by the hand and found me

35:00

resources. That course, I designed

35:04

thinking my goal was to have teachers come away no matter

35:09

what subject area they were in to be able to integrate

35:13

teaching executive functioning into their daily curriculum.

35:18

Integrated. Not as a separate thing, but integrated.

35:22

And I wanted to do it by going to

35:24

the brain. The whole course at the beginning is all about brain learning. Yeah. It's great

35:28

course. People love it. Okay? They love both

35:31

of the courses. The education educators and parents who are taking

35:35

I signed up for this to help kids,

35:37

but, oh my god, this is doing my life. Yeah. They're helping me. Yeah. You know?

35:41

But then so seeing my time, because the beginning of that whole course is mostly brain

35:45

and learning stuff, very again,

35:48

I'm a designer, I'm a creative, and I'm

35:50

a teacher. Okay? So all the videos are

35:52

short and distinct. You know what I mean? It's, like, user friendly. It's learner friendly.

35:56

So seeing my time then is actually the

35:59

concepts are at the end of that course.

36:03

Okay? Because I didn't expect the teachers to

36:05

be able to run a course with the workbook.

36:08

But I then help them understand how they

36:11

can implement the same core concepts

36:14

without the program. That said, what I always tell everybody is

36:17

like, and figure out a way to communicate with your

36:20

parents. Yeah. Mhmm. That's why I wrote my book, 50

36:24

tips to help students succeed was because

36:27

seeing my time was beginning to be used in schools.

36:30

And I had a problem with that because

36:32

of the transference of information. Parents not understanding brain development, not understanding executive

36:37

functioning, get labeling their kids lazy. Mhmm. Yep.

36:41

Sending their kids off to private school, thinking the private school people are gonna fix them.

36:44

Okay? Yep. So I wrote that book for

36:47

them because I know you have it, Steph. Mhmm.

36:50

It's very carefully written. There's like most of

36:52

the tips are 700 words or less.

36:55

Why? Because parents don't have time to read more than that. Okay? Yep. And they're very

36:59

targeted. Because there were books written for parents

37:02

out there on executive functioning, most of which I could not get through.

37:06

You have to have good executive functioning skills

37:08

to get through the EF books. Yeah. Yeah.

37:10

And then and then when you get to the end, they'll say, and now what am

37:12

I supposed to do? Right. What's the takeaway? So I wanted this

37:16

book to not be that way, you know. But it's definitely not. Yeah. It's definitely like

37:20

Go to where you need. Go to where you need. Yeah. I love how it's broken

37:24

down and where it's showing up in different parts of their lives as well. It's not

37:28

just getting homework done. So Which guides me

37:30

into my next question. We did do a Patreon

37:36

extended conversation with Mary d. We will be releasing that

37:40

episode next week because you really do need to

37:44

listen to the entire conversation before listening to

37:46

that Patreon. If you want to hear that

37:49

extended conversation, and believe me, you do, go

37:52

ahead and make sure you are a $5 a

37:55

month monthly subscriber. Obviously, that $5 a month goes to support

37:59

the podcast and the work that we're doing here. And we thank you through these extended

38:04

conversations. You can go back as long as

38:06

you want. They're all there and other things

38:09

that we throw up there for you guys