Make It Mindful: An Education Podcast

Seth Fleischauer
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Make It Mindful is a podcast for educators and school leaders who think seriously about how learning is changing and want to explore what to do next. Hosted by Seth Fleischauer, founder of Banyan Global Learning and former classroom teacher, the show covers three territories: what AI actually changes about teaching and learning, what it takes to help students connect meaningfully across cultures, and the human conditions — belonging, awe, trust, emotional regulation — that learning depends on regardless of what else changes. Guests include district administrators, researchers, clinical psychologists, curriculum designers, and classroom practitioners. Conversations are long-form and honest. Produced by Banyan Global Learning.

  1. Oct 19

    #94 Agency by Design: What It Takes to Act on What You Know with IB's Phil Evans

    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

    #94 Agency by Design: What It Takes to Act on What You Know with IB's Phil Evans

  2. Oct 5

    #93 Inside Nord Anglia's Global Campus: Building Connection Across 90 Schools with Lesley Hatton

    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

    #93 Inside Nord Anglia's Global Campus: Building Connection Across 90 Schools with Lesley Hatton

  3. Sep 21

    #92 Building Cultural Humility to Strengthen Family-Teacher Trust with Dr. Judy Paulick

    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

    #92 Building Cultural Humility to Strengthen Family-Teacher Trust with Dr. Judy Paulick

  4. Sep 7

    #91 The First Yes: How Micro-Grants Are Unlocking Youth-Led Change Around the World with RIVET's Christina Rose

    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

    #91 The First Yes: How Micro-Grants Are Unlocking Youth-Led Change Around the World with RIVET's Christina Rose

  5. Aug 24

    #90 What Thinking Should Stay Human? AI Governance with Travis Moyer

    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

    #90 What Thinking Should Stay Human? AI Governance with Travis Moyer

  6. Aug 10

    #89 Designing Global Cohorts with Travis Moyer

    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.

    #89 Designing Global Cohorts with Travis Moyer

  7. Jul 27

    #88 AI Policy and the District Reality in Texas with Dr. Alfonso Mendoza, Jr.

    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/

    #88 AI Policy and the District Reality in Texas with Dr. Alfonso Mendoza, Jr.

  8. Jul 13

    #87 Investing in Relentless Visionaries: How Venture Philanthropy Creates Global Impact with Brighter Children's Katie Wales

    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/

    #87 Investing in Relentless Visionaries: How Venture Philanthropy Creates Global Impact with Brighter Children's Katie Wales
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Make It Mindful is a podcast for educators and school leaders who think seriously about how learning is changing and want to explore what to do next. Hosted by Seth Fleischauer, founder of Banyan Global Learning and former classroom teacher, the show covers three territories: what AI actually changes about teaching and learning, what it takes to help students connect meaningfully across cultures, and the human conditions — belonging, awe, trust, emotional regulation — that learning depends on regardless of what else changes. Guests include district administrators, researchers, clinical psychologists, curriculum designers, and classroom practitioners. Conversations are long-form and honest. Produced by Banyan Global Learning.

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