Boys and Girls Learn Differently – Two-Part Strategies Session, with Katey McPherson. Gurian Institute Master Trainer.  This session will give participants a tool box full of practical strategies that can be adapted for use in any classroom to increase teacher effectiveness and make sure the needs of both boys and girls are being met. The session will model the strategies as if in a classroom setting.  This session is a requirement for applicants for Gurian Institute Trainer Certification.  The session includes specific innovations for coeducational classrooms and for single sex classrooms and academies.

Got Trauma? Students Bring It to Your Classroom Everyday.Dr. Glynetta Deshon Fletcher, Assistant Principal, Edwin Markham Middle School, Los Angeles Unified School District.  In this session, teachers will learn how to develop trauma sensitive classrooms. We will discuss the impact trauma has on teachers and students and how traumatic situations keep the brain in fight/flight mode, causing children to struggle.  Educators will learn self-care and restorative justice techniques.  We will look at the importance of building strong relationships and attachments. Teachers will leave this session with strategies to help themselves and their students.

He’s Mad! De-Escalating Conflict and Dealing with Male Anger.  Dr. Glynetta Deshon Fletcher, Assistant Principal, Edwin Markham Middle School, Los Angeles Unified School District.  Conflict in itself can be difficult and male anger especially difficult.  Getting students to calm down is not an easy task in any case but there best practices for addressing the conflict and navigating the anger. This workshop will focus on helping young men de-escalate after being involved in a conflict, and identify triggers that make things worse.  Teachers will leave this workshop with strategies they can use in their classroom and hallways immediately.

Helping Girls Thrive, with Dr. Lisa Basista, Lecturer, Educational Administration program at Cal State University, San Marcos, and Gurian Master Trainer.  Sugar and spice … and so much more! This workshop will explore the brain research surrounding girls and apply it to modern school and societal settings. Topics addressed will include: hyper-social anxiety, questions with self-esteem and confidence, and the need to please. Whether an educator, parent, or child advocate, participants will leave equipped to better nurture the unique nature of girls and to help them thrive in school and beyond.

Survival Skills for Girls in STEM: What Women Need Girls to Know, with Susan Jentzsch, Summer Institute Director.  Co-Author of the Teen Leadership Forum, Susan Jentzsch is a teen coach who has developed a master program for mentoring teen girls.  Women are constantly stressed by cultural norms they can barely keep up with. Many girls and women are in a constant internal conversation about unworthiness and not being good enough.  Female physical and mental health suffers, relationships suffer; girls lose sight of their sense of identity and purpose. Susan, formerly of Qualcomm, Inc., spent 20 years in the private sector.  Her workshop not only provides insights into how girls can prepare for STEM professions but also how to help girls successfully navigate leadership and personal goals in fluid and competitive schools and STEM workplaces.

The Heart of the Matter:  Setting the Stage, with Susan Jentzsch and Michael Gurian. Body, mind, and soul are not three isolated systems.  They are three systems intricately woven together that give us the human experience.  In our culture now, our children’s bodies, minds, and souls are experiencing significant stress.  This opening workshop and interaction will link our weekend training to the deep issues of our time in schools and neighborhoods.

The Body and the Brain Do Keep Score, with Susan Jentzch.  Scientific evidence proves that stress not only clouds our mental capabilities but also manifests in the body. Thus, identifying and working through stress is vital to a school’s cultural climate especially where bullying may have occurred and in schools where student performance pressures mount. This workshop will help participants:

• Identify stressors in themselves and their students
• Work through the discomfort of stress and help their students do the same
• Identify the ‘stories’ of each situation and interaction
• Deploy methods to help students remain calm
• Deploy techniques to help adults respond authentically to the stress.

He Said. She Said.  Strategies for Working Together in Male/Female Teams, with Susan Jentzsch.  Based in Susan’s three decades in the workplace and Michael Gurian’s Leadership and the Sexes, this workshop helps women and men work together in teams.  It explores the science of gender and negotiation; improving meetings from a gender lens; communication skills between women and men; and practicing gender intelligent mentoring, coaching, and conflict resolution. Men will learn how to best support women by offering what is required to help them feel successful. Women will learn how to complement male performance in their own unique way to create a powerful team with diverse thoughts and behaviors.

Tim Wright, The Boy-Forging, Girl-Shaping Power of Rites of Passage.   For thousands of years, cultures have recognized the need for and the importance, urgency, and power of healthy rites of passage that lead boys into manhood.  For the last 100 years or so, cultures have also recognized the need for rites of passage for our girls, especially in light of the many challenges girls face in this new century.  Five years ago, Pastor Tim pioneered brain-based rites of passage programs for 12 to 14 year old boys and girls in Phoenix, AZ that are now used around the country.  This workshop is an inspiring and practical look at what we can do to help both boys and girls become adults of character and emotional depth, from a dynamic pastor who has worked with Michael Gurian to blend brain science with faith community assets.

Friday June 22, 2018

6-7 pm All guests are welcome to join us for a reception at the Rec Hall

Saturday June 23, 2018

8 am Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:45 – 9:30 The Heart of the Matter:  Setting the Stage for Creating  Wellness for Our Kids, with Susan Jentzsch and Michael Gurian

Brain Break

9:35 – 11:30 Keynote, Michael Gurian, The Minds of Boys and Girls

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 1:30 First Afternoon Workshop, Concurrent Sessions

Helping Girls Thrive with Dr. Lisa Basista

Boys and Girls Learn Differently, with Katey McPherson, Part I.  For individuals becoming certified trainers, it is a required course.

Got Trauma?  Students Bring It to Your Classroom Everyday, with Dr. Gylnetta Deshon Fletcher

Break

1:45 – 2:45 Second Afternoon Workshop, Concurrent Sessions

The Body and the Brain Do Keep Score, with Susan Jentzsch

Boys and Girls Learn Differently, with Katey McPherson, Part II.  For individuals becoming certified trainers, it is a required course.

Incorporating Technology:  Strategies for the Digital Classroom and Home, with Ethan Segovia

Break

3:00 – 4:00 Meeting with Michael Gurian, Katey McPherson, Susan Jentzsch, and people interested in becoming Gurian Certified Trainers

Sunday, June 24, 2018

8:00 – 9:00  Coffee, Mingling, and Networking

9:00 – 10:15 Keynote, Troy Kemp, Tai-Chi, Kung Fu, and Switzerland!

Break

10:30 – 11:30 Morning Featured Workshop, Susan Jentzsch, Survival Skills for Girls and STEM: What Women Want Girls to Know

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 1:30 Afternoon Workshops, Concurrent Tracks

Raising Boys in a Kryptonite World, with Tim Wright

He’s Mad!  De-escalating Conflict and Dealing with Male Anger, with Dr. Glynetta Deshon Fletcher

She Said, He Said. Strategies for Working Together in Female/male Teams, with Susan Jentzsch

Break

1:45 – 2:45 Afternoon Workshops, Concurrent

What Boys Need to Make a Successful High School to College Transition, with Troy Kemp

The Boy-Forging, Girl-Shaping Power of Rites of Passage, with Tim Wright

Nature, Nurture, Culture – Helping Students Succeed in the Classroom and Beyond, with Amy Coe

Break

3:00 – 3:30  Closing Activity for Conference Participants

All keynotes and workshops highlight gender-friendly theory and strategies applicable to both coeducational and single sex classrooms, schools, and academies.

Schedule is subject to changes and additions.

Monday Morning, Certification of Trainers Session, 8:00 – 11:30, for those individuals becoming Gurian Certified Trainers

Transportation: If you are flying into the San Diego airport, Uber or Lyft can bring you from the airport to Carlsbad. It’s about a 40-minute drive, depending on traffic. Also, your hotel may have shuttle services.

Hotels:  There are multiple hotels to choose from in Carlsbad, many or which are close to the beach.  We suggest you plan ahead to make your reservations while the hotel prices are lower.  As time gets closer to summer, the hotels raise their prices.  Here are three in walking distance from the conference.

West Inn and Suites, 760 448-4500

Best Western, 760 729-1151

Hilton Garden Inn, 760 476-0800.

Learning and Training Objectives

Describe how the field of gender neuroscience is altering what you know about the psychology and education of children and adolescents.

Discuss specific needs and issues of boys and girls from birth to adulthood, including analysis of the gender spectrum.

Assess how generally institutionalized educational, counseling, and parenting models do or do not fill the specific developmental needs of girls and boys.

Identify new logic models and strategies for motivation, learning, and behavioral intervention.

Summarize key stressors and social-emotional factors that differ between girls and boys.

Demonstrate new strategies for learning, counseling, and assessment, including strategies for working with highly sensitive girls and boys.

Implement new strategies and practical tools beyond the training institute, in your own curricular areas and environments.

Target Audience:  educators, administrators, counselors, social workers, early childhood specialists, coed and single sex educators, parents, mentors, coaches, government agency professionals, and policy makers working with children and young adults.

More Workshops

What Boys Need to Make a Successful High School to College Transition, with Troy Kemp.  Male students generally make up half of newly enrolled Freshman classes in college, but they matriculate from college in much smaller numbers than female students.  In 25 years of mentoring boys through this transition, Troy knows first hand the strengths and pitfalls these boys bring to college. In this workshop, he will share a proven plan for strategizing with boys in high school on both hard skills and soft skills that will be needed in college so that they can adapt to college and matriculate on time.

Raising Boys in a Kryptonite World, with Tim Wright.  Boys want to be heroes–men of character, wonder, compassion, challenge, and relationship.  Our society also needs our males to become these loving, wise, and successful men.  But at nearly every turn, cultural ideologies strip boys of healthy development, attack boys for being male, and misunderstand boy behavior. This workshop gives powerful insight into these cultural challenges–with examples of “kryptonite” almost literally “ripped from the headlines–“, and offers parents, educators, and community leaders a number of practical strategies for helping boys become motivated young men of purpose and service.

Nature, Nurture, Culture – Helping Students Succeed in the Classroom and Beyond, with Amy Coe, Assistant Dean of Academics.  This workshop is designed for teachers, administrators, counselors, and all those interested in developing a deeper understanding of the brain-based differences between boys and girls, and how to leverage those differences both inside and outside of the classroom to create an engaging and nurturing classroom and school culture where boys can not only learn but thrive.  The workshop is divided into three sections: The nature of boys – the brain-based differences based on Michael Gurian’s work; practical classroom strategies; strategies to nurture the nature of boys.

The Joys and Pitfalls of Incorporating Technology:  Strategies for the Digital Classroom and Home, with Ethan Segovia, Dean of Academics, Army and Navy Academy.  This workshop on the digital classroom and home provides tools to assist teachers, administrators, and parents with safe, useful, and essential digital learning.  Ethan will focus the workshop on student screen time, cell phone usage, acceptable use, and will also discuss the intersection of the science of sleep and nutrition with digital tools.