The Breakthrough Years for Executive Functioning
March 01, 2026
The author builds a case for placing Real Skills for Real Life at the center of the next chapter of public education
In March 2025, in announcing the launch of the Public Education Promise, 萝卜AV视频Executive Director David Schuler said: 鈥淓very child鈥檚 future is full of possibilities. That鈥檚 why we鈥檝e made a promise 鈥� a promise that matters deeply to the future of our public schools, our communities and our country. This is our commitment to provide every child with the opportunities 鈥� experiences in education 鈥� that will prepare them for college, career and real life in the real world.鈥�
One of the five pillars of the Future-Ready Education Framework that supports this initiative is the principle of Real Skills for Real Life. This idea resonates powerfully in this moment of rapid technological change, widespread disconnection and rising uncertainty among students, families and educators.
Real Skills for Real Life are skills students need to learn that underlie reading and math, such as self-regulation, reflection and adaptation to change.
Since last March, 萝卜AV视频has accelerated its efforts around this priority, convening a national Summit on Real Skills for Real Life in October and now turning the summit鈥檚 insights into professional learning that will be piloted across school districts in early 2026 and will become an AASA-credentialled training course this fall. 萝卜AV视频also will produce tools and resources to make this promise actionable.
Across all of this work, a consistent message has emerged. Before Real Skills for Real Life can take root, communities need a shared understanding of why these skills matter, why they matter with particular force right now and why they belong at the foundation of every child鈥檚 education.
Feedback from last October鈥檚 萝卜AV视频Summit on Real Skills for Real Life that I co-led, an 萝卜AV视频Working Group on Real Skills and the recent Youth Voice on Arts and Thriving Study that my organization conducted with the Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab points to six themes around real skills. Although each community applies its own rationale for why these skills are important, these themes make a strong case for placing Real Skills for Real Life at the center of the next chapter of public education.
No. 1: Real skills answer students鈥� call for meaning.
Of all the issues facing schools, student engagement sits at the center. Engagement is not merely interest or enthusiasm. As Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, explained at the 萝卜AV视频Summit on Real Skills for Real Life, engagement is what people do with their motivation. Motivation is internal. Engagement is motivation in action.
For years, researchers such as Jennifer Fredricks, author of The Eight Myths of Student Engagement, have shown that engagement predicts stronger academic achievement, better attendance, higher graduation and college-going rates, healthier relationships, fewer disciplinary issues and even lower rates of depression.
Yet engagement remains low in many classrooms. The Youth Voice on Arts and Thriving Study surveyed a nationally representative group of more than 1,000 11-24 year-olds and their parents. Results found that nearly one-third of 4th-12th graders rarely or never feel engaged in school. Only about one in three said they feel engaged at least half the time.
The decline in engagement with age is striking. Winthrop noted that three-quarters of 3rd graders say they love school. By 10th grade, the number falls to one-quarter. In their 2025 book The Disengaged Teen, Winthrop and co-author Jenny Anderson describe four modes of engagement:
Resisters who push back;
Passengers who coast;
Achievers who do what鈥檚 expected to excel and get good grades but aren鈥檛 independent thinkers; and
Explorers who are fully engaged, motivated, curious and emotionally healthy.
Yet fewer than 4 percent of middle and high school students report regularly experiencing opportunities that support explorer-mode learning.
What keeps students from seeing themselves as explorers? When asked in our focus groups following the survey, they responded similarly. A 14-year-old captured this frustration succinctly: 鈥淭hey teach us all this math, all this history. They don鈥檛 explain how it鈥檚 going to be useful for real life. It鈥檚 just like, 鈥楬ere, learn this.鈥欌��
The comment isn鈥檛 new, but the context is. Technology has changed the stakes. One 17-year-old described a familiar mindset: 鈥淚f kids understood WHY they鈥檙e learning certain things, they鈥檇 be more willing to do it. But now they think, 鈥業 can just look this up. I can find it online. I can use ChatGPT.鈥欌��
Students today need to understand not just the content they are learning, but the thinking skills they are practicing 鈥� the very skills that help them navigate a world saturated with information, misinformation and self-limiting algorithms.
What if, instead of telling students that polynomials matter because they are the language of mathematics, we also told them they were learning to break complex problems into parts 鈥� a critical skill in every job that requires analysis? What if reading a novel became an explicit lesson in perspective-taking, a skill that matters profoundly for teamwork and leadership? What if students saw writing an essay as an exercise in creative thinking, a capacity more essential than ever in a world where AI can generate facts?
Real Skills for Real Life helps students understand both what they are learning and why they are learning it. And when students grasp the why, engagement follows.
No. 2: Real skills bring 鈥淧ortrait of a Graduate鈥� to life.
Hundreds of school districts have worked with families, educators, employers and students to define the competencies their graduates need to thrive. These Portrait of a Graduate statements vary in terminology, but they converge around a familiar set of capacities: adaptability, self-regulation, emotional intelligence and critical thinking. Brooke Stafford-Brizard, senior vice president at the Carnegie Foundation, stated at AASA鈥檚 Summit on Real Skills for Real Life: 鈥淪tudents need preparation for life鈥檚 challenges, not just academic credentials.鈥�
Employers underscore this every day. National surveys show that hiring decisions now hinge less on GPAs and test scores and far more on problem solving, communication, teamwork and adaptability. Kristine Gilmore, AASA鈥檚 chief leadership and learning officer, previously led hiring efforts for a large manufacturing company. She told summit participants that her firm consistently chose 鈥渃ollaboration over individual performance.鈥� Credentials mattered, she said, but the underlying skills mattered more.
Portrait of a Graduate statements capture what communities aspire to. Real Skills for Real Life can turn those aspirations into practice. They can clarify how skill-building can become part of daily teaching and how students can gain the tools they need to navigate the world with confidence.
No. 3: Real skills are the new readiness.
For decades, education has been guided by the idea of 鈥渞eadiness鈥� 鈥� readiness for kindergarten, middle school, high school, college and career. In the past, that framework may have assumed a stable, predictable future. Parents and young people now describe a very different landscape: pervasive uncertainty.
When we surveyed parents about their challenges in raising children, they wrote about how hard it is to know what to do with everything in flux. Young people agree. A teen wrote, 鈥淣o one really gets how hard it is to be a teen right now, with everything changing so fast.鈥� Another offered a four-word summary of today鈥檚 challenges: 鈥淣ot knowing future challenges.鈥�
We cannot map the world that today鈥檚 students will inherit, but we can prepare them with the skills to adapt to any world they walk into.
At the summit, Adele Diamond, professor of neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, distilled decades of research on the brain, revealing that executive function skills 鈥� the foundational skills or the 鈥渘ew basics鈥� that underlie real skills 鈥� are:
Often more predictive of school readiness than IQ or early academics;
Often more predictive of long-term success than socioeconomic status; and
Foundational to physical/mental health and well-being across the lifespan.
In a future shaped by artificial intelligence and automation, executive function skills and the real skills based on them come closest to a universal readiness framework. And their impact isn鈥檛 deferred until adulthood. These skills make learning possible right now. Students who can regulate their attention engage more deeply. Students who can understand others鈥� perspectives collaborate more effectively. Students who can shift their thinking navigate academic demands more easily. Readiness isn鈥檛 something that just shows up years later. It is visible in classrooms today.
No. 4: Real skills integrate cognitive, social and emotional development.
One of the most important lessons from the 萝卜AV视频summit is that Real Skills for Real Life are not 鈥渟oft,鈥� or noncognitive skills, nor are they a set of supplemental emotional supports. They are cognitive, social and emotional skills grounded in brain development.
At the summit, Philip Zelazo, a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, defined executive function as 鈥渁ttention-regulation skills involved in the intentional control of thought, emotion, motivation and action.鈥� This definition makes clear what many educators experience, that attention, emotion and cognition are inseparable in the brain and in the classroom.
This insight is especially significant now, as districts grapple with unprecedented levels of inattention and behavioral challenges. Education Week reported early in 2025 that more than 70 percent of educators report an increase in challenging behavior among students since 2019.
Traditionally, schools have treated emotion and behavior problems as distractions from learning 鈥� issues to be managed so that academic work can proceed. But neuroscience tells a different story. As Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, founding director of the Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education at University of Southern California, explains: 鈥淟earning that matters always has an emotional component.鈥� When students care about ideas, those ideas activate deeper networks in the brain. Emotion does not interfere with learning. It fuels it.
Social relationships also are integral. Students learn best when they feel seen, known, respected and supported. Isabelle Hau, executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, contends that 鈥渞elationships matter most in learning.鈥� Real Skills for Real Life integrates social, emotional and cognitive growth because that鈥檚 how the brain works.
No. 5: Executive function skills are the new basics.
Real Skills for Real Life are grounded in three foundational executive function capacities of the brain: working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control, and they all depend on reflection. These skills help students hold information in mind, shift perspectives, resist distractions and pause to think before acting.
Executive function skills come into play whenever we have to respond to something new or something different. In those moments, we have a choice. We can either fall back on what we鈥檝e always known or done or respond to the change intentionally. When we respond intentionally, we are using executive function skills.
鈥淟earning requires replacing something old with something new,鈥� Stephanie Carlson, associate director of the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, says. And that鈥檚 the essence of executive function and why University of Mississippi psychology professor Stephanie Miller calls them 鈥渦niversal skills.鈥� When students learn anything 鈥� math, reading, science or art 鈥� they are drawing on these foundational capacities. This is what makes them and the real skills that depend on them so basic. They are not separate from teaching content. They are how content is learned.
The good news is we know how to teach these skills, through repeated practice in increasingly challenging real-life contexts, explicit naming of strategies and reflection that involves all students, not just those who struggle.
The implication is clear: Real Skills for Real Life must be woven into everyday learning, not added as a separate course. These skills are the infrastructure of learning, what neuroscientist Adele Diamond calls the 鈥渕ental toolkit, enabling children to engage deeply and think expansively.鈥�
No. 6: Real skills are not just for children.
At the summit, neuroscientist Damien Fair of the University of Minnesota explained that there are sensitive periods of brain development 鈥� particularly early childhood and adolescence 鈥� when learning is especially efficient and enduring. However, these skills can be developed at any age, and they are just as essential for educators and school leaders to intentionally build and practice as they are for students.
In the Families and Work Institute鈥檚 Mind in the Making training, we鈥檝e learned that sustainable change depends on adults understanding these skills with their minds and their hearts. Teaching executive function also requires modeling it.
Educators today face extraordinary pressures: growing multilingual learner populations, attendance challenges, teacher shortages, shifting state guidelines, funding constraints and heightened political tensions. As one summit participant, a superintendent, said, 鈥淭here are simply too many competing demands on time and attention.鈥�
Real Skills for Real Life matter at every level of the system. Leaders need to focus, be adaptable, prioritize and take on challenges as much as students do. John Malloy, AASA鈥檚 senior vice president of the Leadership Network, said: 鈥淓xecutive function skills are the glue and the foundation for our student and staff success,鈥� adding that once he understood the concept of executive function, he realized he uses these skills 鈥渋n almost everything I do, every day.鈥�
When adults practice these skills, children benefit. When adults don鈥檛, children struggle. Real Skills for Real Life must become a culture and a practice, not a curriculum.
A Promise to Fulfill
When 萝卜AV视频Executive Director David Schuler launched the Public Education Promise, he reminded us that every child鈥檚 life is full of possibilities. Real Skills for Real Life ensure that those possibilities are not lost. They position students 鈥� and the adults in their lives 鈥� to thrive in a world that is changing faster than at any other moment in history.
Ellen Galinsky is president of the research nonprofit Families and Work Institute in Palisades, N.Y., served as co-lead of the 萝卜AV视频Summit, and is the author of The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens.
Author
6 Lessons to Raise Students鈥� Executive Function Skills
In 2016, Adele Diamond and Daphne Ling of the University of British Columbia published a landmark review of interventions designed to improve executive function skills. They concluded that although these skills are vital for school and life success and can be improved at any age, many efforts to improve them have failed.
Why? Because skills taught in isolated classes or training sessions rarely achieved 鈥渇ar transfer,鈥� in their words. Skills learned in one context stayed there. They did not carry over into new situations.
Since then, an array of research and experience have deepened our understanding of how to achieve far transfer. Six lessons stand out.
Executive function skills improve when practiced regularly. This practice must involve meaningful, increasingly challenging real-life contexts. Executive function skills 鈥� and the real skills that depend on them 鈥� don鈥檛 develop separately from content. They develop through it.
For example, in the early years, children aren鈥檛 just learning to decode words. They can be learning to take a character鈥檚 perspective in the stories they read. Later, as they study history, they also can build perspective-taking skills when creating a play or writing about historical figures. They also can learn real-life skills through the arts, sports and community activities.
Supportive environments matter. Executive function skills are especially vulnerable under high stress. This means that relationships with adults and other students aren鈥檛 鈥渆xtras鈥� 鈥� they鈥檙e prerequisites. Children鈥檚 basic psychological needs must be met through relationships: to belong, be respected, challenged, contribute and have some autonomy. When students feel safe and supported, they are better able to plan, focus, persist and adapt.
Reflection is essential. Reflection is the active ingredient that allows executive function skills to work together. Children need opportunities for retrospective reflection, the ability to look back and name the skills they鈥檝e learned, and prospective reflection, the ability to look ahead and identify the skills they鈥檒l need for a new situation. This means resisting the urge to push for quick answers and instead providing time to process information, asking how students arrived at their conclusions, encouraging pair-sharing and discussing how we think and learn.
Mistakes must be reframed as data for learning. Simply saying 鈥淢istakes are OK鈥� may help normalize them, but it doesn鈥檛 help children learn from them. Adults need to pause with students, help them analyze errors as normal in learning, and see them as information for better learning.
Autonomy-supportive teaching practices underlie skill-building. In essence, this means always asking ourselves: Have we helped children learn skills to solve their own problems and to generate solutions themselves rather than fixing things for them?
These skills need to be publicly acknowledged. For the skills that communities endorse in Portrait of a Graduate statements to gain public traction, students need to track their own learning in these valued capacities and report on them in conferences with teachers and parents. Finally, they also need to be reported on publicly.
With these six principles, adults can help students see how they are becoming lifelong learners, able to adapt to life鈥檚 challenges now and in the future.
鈥� Ellen Galinsky
Cultivating Minds and Growing Gardens
By Aaron M. Kellert
At John Rex Elementary School in Oklahoma City, Okla., learning doesn鈥檛 just happen inside the classroom 鈥� it grows right outside our doors. Our school garden program has blossomed into a vibrant outdoor classroom where students dig into science, math, reading and even art while gaining hands-on experience that connects classroom lessons to the real world and develops core real-life skills such as planning, organization, focus and time management.
The garden project began in 2022 as a 鈥淐an we鈥�?鈥� in the mind of our superintendent, Patrick Duffy. His vision was to give students a place where they could see, touch and nurture the natural world around them and experience unique learning about our world that is not commonly available in an urban school setting like ours.
The following year, we secured funding for the program through federal and state resources and corporate donors. The greenhouse and surrounding garden beds, located on a corner of the elementary school property in downtown Oklahoma City, were designed in partnership with the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture and Design.
Today, that dream has flourished into raised beds filled with vegetables, herbs and native plants; a one-of-a-kind greenhouse complete with a classroom and an indoor growing area; and a 500-square-foot butterfly garden.
A Living Lab
Led by our enrichment specialist and gardening guru Ally Audas, the garden serves as a natural extension of the science curriculum at every grade level. Kindergarteners observe plant life cycles firsthand, watching seeds sprout and leaves unfurl. Third graders map out planting grid systems and learn about ecosystems and pollinators, all while following tagged Monarchs to Mexico and back. Older students explore concepts such as photosynthesis, sustainability and the water cycle through real-world observation rather than textbook diagrams.
Working in the garden also teaches environmental responsibility and stewardship. Through a partnership with the local Scissortail Park, students learn how composting reduces waste and how pollinators, like bees and butterflies, play an essential role in food production. These lessons help students develop a deep respect for the environment and a better understanding of how human choices impact the planet.
Beyond academics, the garden cultivates the real-world skills of responsibility, teamwork and patience. Students take turns watering, weeding and caring for plants 鈥� tasks that require consistency and care. They learn that success takes time and that every contribution matters, whether it鈥檚 planting a seed or pulling a weed.
Teachers often note how working in the garden brings out students鈥� natural curiosity and cooperation. It鈥檚 common to see older students mentoring younger ones, explaining how to plant a seed or identify a sprout. Along with our community and city, the program has become a community effort that connects families to the school in meaningful ways.
One of the most rewarding parts of the program is harvesting what the students have grown. Fresh herbs and vegetables from the garden often make their way into classroom taste tests or lessons about nutrition and healthy eating. We firmly believe students are more likely to try new foods when they鈥檝e had a hand in growing them, making the garden a powerful tool for promoting lifelong healthy habits.
Building Connections
The John Rex Elementary garden is more than a collection of plants 鈥� it鈥檚 a symbol of growth, learning and community. As we continue to expand the program, our goal is to deepen its connection to the curriculum and involve even more students, teachers and families.
Whether it鈥檚 through science lessons, family garden days or new adventures into solar and wind energy projects, the garden will continue to grow along with our students, teaching them that with patience, effort and a little sunshine, anything is possible.
Aaron Kellert is principal of John Rex Elementary School in Oklahoma City, Okla.
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