From Michael Gurian: I spent last weekend at Army and Navy Academy, a boys boarding school in Carlsbad, CA. The school is right on the beach (an amazing location!) and serves hundreds of boys with leading edge brain-friendly education, 7th – 12th grade. It is a destination school for parents and sons from around the world and also has local day students.

Army and Navy Academy has been a Gurian Center for Educational Excellence for the last two years (https://gurianinstitute.com/army-and-navy-academy-ana/). It will be the site of our Summer Training Institute next year as it was for three consecutive years before Covid shutdown. Thank you, Army and Navy! Now here’s more about the school and a video clip of a teacher practicing boy-friendly strategies in the classroom.

Army and Navy Academy has a revolutionary focus on boy brain science and virtue development that sets it apart from other schools. From the website: “We use evidence-based instructional techniques like kinesthetic learning that help boys thrive in the classroom and beyond. Teachers and mentors work every day to cultivate virtue in our cadets. The end result is an environment that is better for every boy, from exceptional high-achievers to young men still striving to reach their full potential.”

While ANA uses a military format, only a few of its graduates go into the military. The military format is used mainly for healthy social-emotional and purpose development, the bonding of brotherhood, vertical and peer mentoring, college and tech prep, and a focus on future career, virtue, and fatherhood success.

Over the next few months, we will feature video clips from various teachers at the school so that you can see the brain-friendly Gurian strategies in practice in a dynamic classroom. These clips were created by ANA teachers for use at this last June’s Summer Training Institute on Zoom. While the strategies appear in a boys-only classroom at Army and Navy, they are good for coed classrooms, as well, wherever you are, with slight modification for the coed environment.

Check out Army and Navy Academy on their website (www.armyandnavyacademy.org).

Now here is a video clip from English Teacher, Christie Lewis: