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WAWGTDWATF - The Future of Education
47 Plays7 months ago
In this episode, author and entrepreneur Mitch Weisburgh joins Rose Genele to unpack the evolving challenges—and deep opportunities—within the education system. With a background in systems design, adult instruction, and nearly two decades in education, Mitch brings a unique perspective on how we can shift not just our educational systems, but our thinking itself.
The conversation explores the long-standing structural issues in U.S. education, the disruptive effects of COVID-19, and the potential for transformation through both policy and pedagogy. Mitch introduces his concept of mind shifting—a framework for cultivating self-awareness, resilience, and critical thinking—and how these skills could be essential to reimagining education for a more adaptive, equitable future.
Together, they explore how AI can be used to enhance—not replace—human connection in classrooms, the importance of personalized learning, and why hope and teacher empowerment matter more than ever. Mitch also shares his optimism for the future, his vision for educator training, and the courses he’s developed to help both teachers and learners thrive in times of uncertainty.
Whether you're an educator, parent, policymaker, or future-focused thinker, this episode offers powerful insights into the intersection of neuroscience, learning, and the technologies reshaping how we prepare the next generation.
Keep up with Mitch on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Introduction to Mitch Weisberg and His Background
00:00:23
Speaker
Today, our guest is Mitch Weisberg, an author and entrepreneur. Mitch, thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you, Rose, for having me Amazing.
00:00:35
Speaker
To start off, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background?
00:00:41
Speaker
So, as you know, my name is Mitch Weisberg. I've been involved with instruction, instructing adults and systems design actually going back to the nineteen early 1980s, and I've been involved haveve been involved in education since around 2001, I developed learning management systems, I've developed courses.
00:01:03
Speaker
But I would say for the past eight years, my focus has been on the brain and how we get locked into things that are counterproductive, which are a function of our survival brain.
Mind Shifting and Educator Courses
00:01:19
Speaker
and how we sometimes can be really resource resourceful and resilient and collaborative. And then how to realize, oh my gosh, I'm locked into this, but here's what I can do to become more resourceful resilient.
00:01:34
Speaker
Okay, I'm feeling resilient now. How do they maintain that resilience even when things start to go wrong and even when things start when people start opposing us? And so that's been my focus for last eight years.
00:01:46
Speaker
I call it mind shifting. i do three things with minds shifting i i talked about it I've written my first book, which is which is really on the brain. And i teach three different courses in mindshifting primarily to educators.
Impact of COVID and Administrative Changes on US Education System
00:02:03
Speaker
What are some of the trends that you are seeing right now in learning or in education? Well, there's so many things happening in education in the U.S. And this is what, 2025. We have a new administration.
00:02:19
Speaker
and They're breaking a lot of the things that were broken before, but they're doing it in a way that's very disruptive. Even before them, the education system was disrupted with COVID.
00:02:32
Speaker
And so COVID made a huge impact that we're still feeling. And even before COVID, the US education system was not doing a particularly good job in preparing kids for their careers and and their lifetimes.
00:02:47
Speaker
So we have like a system that really wasn't serving the people that it was meant to serve. disrupted by COVID, not fully coming back or changing because of COVID, and now a new administration coming in that's completely disrupting it again, and nobody really knows what what to do.
Preparing Students for Adulthood and Future
00:03:07
Speaker
And so changes to administration and perhaps trying to fix something that has been broken for some time, where do you see the opportunities for education and learning?
00:03:21
Speaker
Where do you see progress in the future for these areas? So going that down into like there's two different aspects. OK, so one is systems and one is kind of outlook for people and and and the brain, which is which is my area.
00:03:38
Speaker
But in in terms of systems, we've developed these systems of education. for over a hundred years and they've solidified around practices that don't teach kids how to be resourceful, don't teach kids how to be resilient, don't teach kids how to want to learn, don't prepare kids for their lives as adults.
00:04:00
Speaker
But they are successful in the sense that 98% of kids who enter the school system at age five, 13 years later, they're 18 years old.
00:04:12
Speaker
they're eighteen years old So in that sense, you know the system works because they turn five-year-olds into 18-year-olds in 13 years. But the the teachers themselves you know are frustrated. The kids have been frustrated.
00:04:27
Speaker
ah The administrators are frustrated. The the taxpayers have been frustrated. But the systems have never changed. So the good that could come out of all the changes that are happening is that if the system gets broken so badly that we then rebuild it into a system that's much better, then that's the big benefit that could eventually happen.
00:04:50
Speaker
Now, what my part of it is, is to get all the different players in the in the system. Actually, my goal is all the you know people around the world, and not just in education, but right now, you know, the people within the education system to be more resourceful and resilient.
00:05:08
Speaker
And so that teachers can feel more motivated and engage teaching and living. They can apply these techniques to help their kids think better. And then the kids can learn the techniques so that they themselves can become more resourceful and resilient.
00:05:24
Speaker
And that's my role in this is to work on you know, the the educators and through the educators reach the kids so that the kids grow up to be more resourceful and resilient. And so what do you think it would take to fix the system, as it were? you You mentioned that you have your part and that, you know, you want to focus on supporting the teachers um that can then support the students. But on a more macro scale, what sort of changes would we need to see to really
00:05:57
Speaker
revamp the education system in a way that's going to be beneficial and um in a way that it's and actually going to serve its purpose well.
Role of Technology and Personalization in Learning
00:06:08
Speaker
So I think that for the education system, we have to start off with what our major goals are.
00:06:14
Speaker
Our major goals aren't to keep kids in classrooms. Our major goals are to prepare kids so that when they're 17, 18, 19 years old,
00:06:26
Speaker
they're ready to be adults, whatever that means. They're ready to be family members. They're ready to to to work. They're ready to go to college. They're ready to ah participate in society.
00:06:37
Speaker
And we should be setting that goal from the point that that that they start school. What is it that we have to do to take a kid who's five years old and bring them to the point where they can do all these things when they're 18 or 19?
00:06:50
Speaker
And then understand that every kid is different right now. are we're We're taking all kids and say all five-year-olds are going to learn this. All six-year-olds are going to learn that. if To be able to to use technology and teachers to be able to look at kids and say these kids have these interests and these capabilities, how do we then amplify their capabilities, have them be able to fill in the gaps for themselves with help,
00:07:24
Speaker
in order to progress rather than lock step. This is what you're going to do at five. This is what you're going to do at six. This is what you're going to do do at seven. And once we do that, there's so many different things we we can do. And there's so many different ways that we can use technology to do it along with with with educators, along with people that are that that can build curriculum.
00:07:44
Speaker
But we have to go back to what are what our big goals are for education.
AI's Role in Motivation and Engagement
00:07:51
Speaker
It sounds like you're talking about personalized learning, which is something that I think has had some discussion lately, especially around the use of AI in education and in teaching and in schools.
00:08:10
Speaker
What are your thoughts around how to balance the use of a technology like AI support support learning, personalized learning, while being mindful of the importance of of human interaction, human instruction, and and and having teachers in the classroom.
00:08:33
Speaker
The number one factor in terms of kids' success is that they have hope. They have hope that they will continue to improve, that they will be able to succeed.
00:08:48
Speaker
The number two factor in kids' success is the teacher, the individual teacher. And so we should be thinking about AI. How do we help the teacher give kids the hope and motivation and engagement to learn? And that's how we should be using ai And unfortunately, we use AI based on the, we've been using AI based on the current goals of education, which is have the kids complete this.
00:09:20
Speaker
And when the goal is have the kids complete this, we're getting to the point where that the AI is coming up with the things that the kids should do, and then the kids are using the AI to do it.
00:09:31
Speaker
And so the teachers are losing control over you know what is it that we want kids to do? And the kids aren't doing the work. So they're coming through and they're saying, well, look, you know told me to do these math problems and here's here's the answers.
00:09:43
Speaker
You told me to write an essay, here's the essay. But they're not doing it. So they're not getting the experience doing it. Whereas if if the AI were really given to the teachers as a way to engage and motivate kids and the teachers were trained in how use AI to do that,
00:10:04
Speaker
and we were you know and we were measuring the things about motivation and engagement as much as we are just at the outputs, then I think that we would would would see incredible improvement in and AI would be fulfilling its potential in education.
00:10:20
Speaker
And you're the expert. and you know You know a lot more about AI than I do. So I'm going to throw the question back to you what do you. As you hear that or as you have your other thoughts, what do you think about AI in education?
00:10:32
Speaker
I think that it would be great to empower teachers more and to use AI as a tool to support students.
00:10:43
Speaker
I think that students would use AI and potentially maybe more um literate in AI use than teachers and just, you know, the dynamic that that creates.
Critical Thinking and Self-Awareness in Education
00:10:58
Speaker
Um, My next question was going to be about critical thinking and how we how we cultivate critical thinking or effectively teach critical thinking in students.
00:11:11
Speaker
And this is all the more top of mind for me because of AI use, the way that students use AI. And like you said, you know there is what feels like very important learning that isn't actually happening because the way that students are using ai And so what is you know what is what is the answer? like How do we still effectively teach students critical thinking while having access to tools like AI?
00:11:43
Speaker
What do you envision that might look like?
00:11:47
Speaker
I think a key skill that precedes critical thinking or creative thinking or collaboration is a is the skill of self-awareness.
00:11:59
Speaker
and to be aware, oh my gosh, I'm not in a critical thinking mode. I'm not in a creative mode right now. I'm just in a mode where I'm im doing habits im or I'm in the mode where I'm fearful or I'm anxious.
00:12:15
Speaker
And so I think that one of the huge benefits of of mind shifting is giving teachers the ability to recognize both for themselves and their students when their students aren't in the mode to do critical thinking and then have the teachers have the skills to be able to teach the students first so that the teachers can co-regulate them and second so that the students understand to self-regulate much better so they can say oh my gosh this this exercise that I'm doing
00:12:49
Speaker
is supposed to be helping me think critically or is supposed to helping me develop these math skills. How do I use this exercise in order to develop the math skills rather than how do I use this exercise and just get through it so I get the right answer?
00:13:05
Speaker
So it sounds like there would need to be some retraining or revamp in teacher education. i know that there's lifelong learning as it relates to educating, but it sounds like there might be a need for the way that teachers are prepared to become teachers or are, you know, um educated, that there needs to be a bit of a revolution.
00:13:38
Speaker
I don't know if this technology is impactful enough to use that sort of word, but it seems like we need to look at other steps or or other components of the whole and make significant changes there as well as the technology is making such significant changes to the way our students learn and and to the way that they interact with, you know, the educational material.
00:14:04
Speaker
I'm not sure that people are looking at it like that. I'm not sure that we have that view? I think you've hit on a couple really important points.
00:14:15
Speaker
Okay, one,
00:14:18
Speaker
ah people aren't having that view.
00:14:23
Speaker
The view that technology should be used to enhance engagement and and motivation as much as the specific things on how do you produce the the results.
00:14:36
Speaker
And then the other view that technology is is really the tool. And yes, teachers and teacher candidates need to become versed in the use of technology, but even more so, they need to be they they need to understand the mindsets in order to harness technology to learn rather than to produce.
00:15:01
Speaker
And think, okay, we think okay so You give us the techniques to use AI to be able to teach math better. Give us the techniques to use AI to be able to teach history better.
00:15:12
Speaker
No, it's like first. How do you impart the mindsets so that the kids want to progress there and increase their own skills and then how to use the tools to do that? And we put the tools and the use of the tools first too often.
Equal Access to Technology in Education
00:15:34
Speaker
A related question is, with your experience teaching and educating around the glo ah around the world, around the globe, not just in the US, how can we ensure that all students have access to the latest technology and educational resources?
00:15:54
Speaker
um And what sort of disadvantage are students at if they don't have access to AI at their schools or in their homes in this day and age? If we're gonna make the providers of technology to be primarily capitalist institutions, money-making institutions, then the those institutions are naturally going to provide the tools to the people that give them the most profit and revenue.
00:16:26
Speaker
And under those circumstances, we are not going to give equal access to all people. And so we have to come up with ways of constraining that so that the best tools get in the hands of everybody.
00:16:43
Speaker
And you can't do that through just saying, okay, you're ChatGPT, you're owned by the ChatGPT organization and Microsoft, go ahead and make as much money as you can.
00:16:56
Speaker
We have to establish some some rules that say, if you're going to be providing this, you have to be able to provide it to everybody.
Understanding Mind Shifting and Its Importance
00:17:07
Speaker
I want to shift gears a little bit and dive into mind shifting. You've mentioned it a couple of times before, but maybe you could give us a little bit of a description and and some context around how you stumbled upon mind shifting and some of the work that you've done to put together the book that you've recently released.
00:17:38
Speaker
So one example of mind shifting, and it you know relates to, I guess, the Henry Ford, or it's attributed to Henry Ford, the statement, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. so So when you think you can't do something, then what your brain does is it actively prevents you from accessing your resourceful and your resilient parts of the brain.
00:18:03
Speaker
Your brain then becomes... anxious about trying something secretes fear hormones which focus you on you your actions of not doing it and not thinking about whatever it is that that you you think that you can't do.
00:18:20
Speaker
And the goal of mind shifting is how do you then change that to somebody who says, well, you know something, maybe I can't do it right now or maybe I can do it in the future or perhaps I can do this and open up your brain and um and We go through, just in terms of motivation, probably 15 different techniques with with getting yourself to actually do things that where you're feeling anxious about them.
00:18:45
Speaker
But you know one of those is, as an example, um is being able to remember all the times where you did succeed. Every person has done things that at one point they felt that they felt that they couldn't do.
00:19:00
Speaker
And if you can make a list of those things and how you triumphed anyhow, Then the next time you're up to something and you say, geez, I don't think I can continue this. And you pull out that list.
00:19:13
Speaker
It might be called an emotional cookie jar. You can pull up your emotional cookie jar list of all the times where you've succeeded, where you were ready to stop and where people told you that you couldn't say, wow, you know something?
00:19:24
Speaker
I persisted in so many different things. And those are the things that I'm most proud of. This is just another one of those things i can go ahead and and and i I could try this. And that's just that's just one of these different techniques.
00:19:37
Speaker
And that's just one of the instances because you know there's the instance of knowing that you can't do things. There's also the instance of being sure of something. When we're sure of something, when we know something, we're not open to other suggestions. So that when when we know that um are that all of these criminals are coming from Mexico into the United States, and if with if we know that,
00:20:03
Speaker
then um then we're not open to any other data or any other other piece of information that may point that, hey, you know something? Most of the people coming from Mexico aren't criminals. you know they're They're just normal people.
00:20:16
Speaker
um Or if we're so sure that this that the the United States, as an example, is a nation of immigrants, and we said we should we should open up our borders, then you're so sure of that that you're not willing then to consider that, hey, you know something some of these people probably should not be in.
00:20:31
Speaker
let in or if we let everybody in what's that going to do to our citizens how are we going to support these people for a certain amount of time and so a lot of mind shifting is how do you take something that you're sure of recognize that being sure of something is a response from our primitive brain not our higher order thinking and then calm that down so that we can access our critical thinking and our creativity and our and our collaborative abilities in order to come up with much better
Mind Shifting for Societal Progress
00:21:02
Speaker
solutions.
00:21:02
Speaker
And so i ive started this because because I could just see that as a as a world, as a society, as a community, we're constantly babbling each other. We're so sure that we're right about things that we're not moving forward.
00:21:19
Speaker
But I don't care what the issue is. You are never 100% right about anything. Well, maybe you are, but I'm never 100% right about everything. And so if I can open up my mind and say, you know something, I might be 90% right, but I can learn that 10% from somebody else.
00:21:36
Speaker
And sure enough, what happens is it's not that 10% I'm probably learning. 20% or 30% from those other uncles other people. And but what we're coming up with is something that's significantly better than any one of us could have come up with individually, because we were so sure that we were right, that we weren't open to the new suggestions.
00:21:55
Speaker
And that's why I developed some mind shifting is how do we get we get to the point where we are collaborative, we are creative, we are critically thinking, we are resilient, that when things go wrong, we don't regard it as a failure. Things go wrong.
00:22:10
Speaker
It's not that they went wrong. It's that they were different than we expected. So how do we take that information and adjust so that we can come back and succeed anyhow?
00:22:19
Speaker
Would you consider mind shifting to be something that is part of kind of personal development?
Mind Shifting in Education
00:22:31
Speaker
do you associate it or Do you associate it with education at all? Or is it more of a ah way of learning? So I think if we go back to the end goal of preparing kids starting out when they're five, so that when they're 18,
00:22:51
Speaker
they can live great lives, productive members of society, part of groups and families happy, then if that's the role of education, then mind shifting should be part of education.
00:23:07
Speaker
But I'll say that when I talk to people in in education, you know, quite a few of them get it, but quite a few of them come back and say, you know something,
00:23:20
Speaker
I would love to do this and we're going to do this, but we're going get our test scores up first. and it's And I'm like, you're never going to get your test scores up. You know, that day is past. You know, the things that you're going to double down on the things that aren't working, because if you double down on them, you you you know, you're not going to be fired because that's what everybody else is doing.
00:23:37
Speaker
No, we need to start off with the brain. And we and understand people and people have to understand how do they motivate themselves or how do they motivate others and how do you get into resourceful modes? And so, yes, I think it should be part of education.
00:23:51
Speaker
But unfortunately, it's been an uphill battle. But I can see it happening because I can see the educators who are taking the courses and they're talking to their principals and the principals are talking to the superintendents and that and and that's opening up pathways.
00:24:07
Speaker
Tell me about these courses. So there's three different courses that I teach. Each course is six two-hour sessions over Zoom. And so the first course is really on the brain for yourself.
00:24:21
Speaker
How do you understand when you're stuck? And then how do you get out of being stuck? And how do you be resilient? And what are the types of situations that generally throw you into being stuck? And then how do you recognize it in others?
00:24:37
Speaker
And what can you do about that? So the first course is really on the brain. The second course is on how do we react to situations in ways that allow us to constantly move forward?
00:24:49
Speaker
And start off with the premise that most of us, when we when we see a problem or we see an opportunity, we gravitate towards the one right solution and any other solution then is wrong.
00:25:01
Speaker
And so how do we look at how do we look at situations more flexibly first and then Very often when we've come up with that one right solution, we're convinced that we're going to do that and it's going to solve the problem.
00:25:15
Speaker
But with these big hairy problems, the first thing that we do never solves the problem. And so we're sure we're about the solution. We try it out. It doesn't work. We fail. And then we say, uh-oh, now I shouldn't have done that. um I have to stop or or it's because of this.
00:25:31
Speaker
If we could look at situations and say, you know some of the first thing that I'm going to do, it's probably not going to completely work, but it's going to give me valuable information. And so how do we get into a mindset so that we can do that? And so that second course is on how do we approach situations and how do we stick with the things that we that we're trying?
00:25:49
Speaker
and and react to the feedback that the world is giving us as as we try them. And then the third course is no matter what we do, we're going to be doing it with other people. And the ways that we handle conflicts with other people tend to make those conflicts worse.
00:26:06
Speaker
And so how do we then... take people that we're in conflict with and work with them anyhow so that together we can build things that are that are that are better. And so the the third course is on conflict and collaboration.
00:26:22
Speaker
And then Usually I get somewhere between 30 and 60 people coming and taking the course and they get plenty of chances to interact with each other and they get plenty of ah times to practice and reflect on trying to practice these different techniques and concepts with others but but between the sessions.
00:26:45
Speaker
And are these courses for educators? I would say yes, yes but And I hate yes, but, but ah the material in the courses, the concepts and the techniques can be used by anybody. And I've certainly had a lot of people who are not educators who are taking the courses.
00:27:06
Speaker
But I publicize the courses for educators and probably 90% of the examples that I use in the courses are around education.
00:27:19
Speaker
But I will say that every single one of the people taking the courses comes back and says, oh, my gosh, I've had these personal issues or I've had these work issues.
00:27:30
Speaker
And when I realized that was just my limbic reactions to those things, the problem just went away. And so the people taking the courses are finding that that it improves their you know their personal lives, their professional lives and their lives as as educators.
00:27:49
Speaker
That's amazing. I'm very interested in in these courses and my my interest has peaked.
Envisioning a Post-Crisis Future
00:27:57
Speaker
um Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask one last question that's a little more future focused.
00:28:05
Speaker
And that is, what are you most optimistic about as it relates to the future?
00:28:17
Speaker
So in the very long term, I think that over the next year to three years, as a society in North America, but also in the world, we're going to be confronted with some increasingly disruptive events, and there's going to be a tremendous amount of pain for a large, large number of people.
00:28:51
Speaker
And that really bothers me. But what I see emerging on the other side is a much more wholesome way of being and progressing.
00:29:04
Speaker
And so it's like we're going to go through this you know, this really bad times over a year, two years, three years, and then we're going to emerge and we're going to be stronger, happier, and and live better lives.
00:29:23
Speaker
So that's what gives me hope.
00:29:26
Speaker
Mitch, thanks so much for your time today. Thanks for sharing your insights. We really appreciate it. you know thank Thank you. And it's always wonderful to talk to you. I love talking with really smart people who are smarter than I am.
00:29:41
Speaker
And so your questions have has caused me to to think a lot, but that's why you asked the questions, right? yes
00:29:50
Speaker
People that want to stay up to date with what you have going on, they want to follow your work, they want to stay connected.
Mitch's Resources and Contact Information
00:29:57
Speaker
What's the best way for them to do that? Well, thanks for asking, because I think that the best way is in my website, which is mindshiftingwithmitch.com.
00:30:07
Speaker
And that goes through really four different aspects of mind shifting. One is the books. And there's currently one book out. Second is speaking. So if somebody wants to bring me or somebody else talking about mind shifting into an organization.
00:30:22
Speaker
And third is about the courses. So if somebody's interested in the courses, it describes them and gives people ability to sign. And then fourth is I write a newsletter. And there's a link to the newsletter from that site also. So mindshiftingwithmitch.com.
00:30:35
Speaker
That would be the best place to find out more.