Dr. Pamela Cantor: There are certain foundational skills like executive function, self-regulation, that are pre-requisites for the formation of more complex skills, like perseverance and self-direction. A child can become a productive and engaged learner from any developmental starting point as long as we intentionally build those skills.

Catherine Paul: Any volunteers? Go up and do a priority list? Abdi, thank you.

Dr. Pamela Cantor: The most active research right now is actually about adolescence. There are skills that develop uniquely in adolescence that can’t develop in earlier periods. An example of one of those is executive function skills, which enable us to organize and prioritize. By asking students to prioritize their tasks the teacher builds that skill set in an entire classroom.

Catherine Paul: In eighth grade there’s a ton of different deadlines and work to manage. So, we do the ABC priority list in order to help them manage all those different deadlines.

Abdirahman: Somebody always goes up to start our priority list. It helps us categorize everything that we have and organize from most important to least important.

Student: We have the West Virginia versus Barnette case questions for social studies.

Catherine Paul: When is that due?

Student: Today.

Catherine Paul: So, it’s a high priority.

Student: We have a practice collage that we need to do for science class.

Abdirahman: They tell me each assignment and when it’s due or how important it is.

Student: We have the dry ice observation for science.

Catherine Paul: Oh, wow. Jeez.

Catherine Paul: They share out all the different deadlines that are roaming around in their head and then they know how to go through the protocol of prioritizing.

Can you help Abdi to figure out what the A1 is?

Student: Well, dry ice observation?

Catherine Paul: I think so, because it’s overdue, right? So, if it’s overdue, you’ve got to get that done first. And then what would be an A2?

Student: The West Virginia versus Barnette questions.

Dr. Pamela Cantor: It wasn’t a teacher saying, “You should.” It was a student saying, “Here’s what I think are the ways in which these activities should be prioritized.” So, in effect what this teacher was doing was modeling and teaching executive function skills.

Arius: If you’re kind of overwhelmed by your work, then you can kind of like know what to do first and then just kind like categorize it and get it done efficiently.

Catherine Paul: Okay, so, which one of those things is probably going to be your frog?

Mark Twain said if you wake up every morning and eat a frog, everything else will taste great. So, I taught them to take their frog from the list, which is the thing they want to do the least, and get it out of the way, because everything else will seem easy.

Abdirahman: Our frog is like the most important assignment, like the one I’m really worried about.

Catherine Paul: Dry ice. So, okay, you’ve got to do that. What’s your frog?

Abdirahman: It helps me realize I need to get this done faster than I need to get this done. So even though this is more fun I need to get this out of the way before I can do this.

Catherine Paul: So, as soon as we’re done with that priority list, I notice everyone gets right to work, because they have it spelled out very clearly for them.

Dr. Pamela Cantor: This is the building of executive function skills in kids.

King Middle School