For more than 20 years, the Gurian Institute has been certifying trainers to provide professional development and consulting in schools, organizations, and communities both in the United States and abroad.  You can meet some of our trainers on https://gurianinstitute.com/trainers/.   Earlier this year, we announced a major new GI initiative:  “A Trainer in Every School.”  The program’s goal is to equip every school with at least one certified trainer who can train faculty, staff, and parents in brain-based teaching and whole child growth.

Do you want to become a certified trainer?  If you are coming to our Winter Training Institute, you can become certified there.  The Winter Institute will be held on January 25-26 at a Gurian Model School, The Lovett School, in Atlanta with Monday morning, January 27, set aside for completion of GI Trainer Certification.   To learn more about the Winter Institute and register, click: https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-winter-institute-2020/.   And here’s more about our Trainer in Every School Initiative.

As you may know from your own experience (and can confirm on our website’s Success page at https://gurianinstitute.com/success/), when schools, communities, and parents receive science-based, research-driven, and strategies-focused training in how boys and girls learn and grow:

*Student engagement increases

*Teacher quality and teacher effectiveness improve

*Both test scores and student grades rise

*Parent involvement and confidence improve

*Discipline referrals to administrators decrease

*Bullying and child distress decrease

*Social-emotional learning improves

*Child self-esteem rises; and

*Mental health markers improve.

Why does this happen?  Because schools, communities, and families become safer, happier places.  As the whole child is understood in all its diversity through the three lens of human development–nature, nurture, and culture–schools and families adjust to nurture the nature of the child.  This brain-based approach is a powerful way to buck constantly changing social trends and engage with what is fundamental and crucial to child success.

Accomplishing the Goal

To help the whole child, our GI team has understood that few things are more crucial to learning and life-success than who we are as females and males.  Boys and girls learn and grow differently.  Sex and gender comprise an ontology (a way of being) that sits at the heart of human development and education.  Despite that some people posit “the end of men,” “the end of male/female,” “to say ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ is just stereotyping,” our children and students are, indeed, female and male.

As Michael Gurian has shown in his work (e.g. Saving Our Sons, The Minds of Girls, Boys and Girls Learn Differently), wherever children are in socio-economic range, race, or other social markers, X and Y chromosomes compel our brains to become female and male on a gender spectrum.  Gurian has further pointed out in The Minds of Girls: “Even transgender brains prove the existence of female and male brains–someone who is transgender knows at a fundamental level that his or her brain is set in the male or female configuration, and wants to adjust the body toward that sexual configuration in the brain.”

“Female and male brains” are crucial to our culture, our homes, and our schools.  When we stop accounting for them, we create social systems in which millions of boys and girls fail, fall behind, and even, in some cases, turn against us.   The Gurian Institute has been battling against this possibility, one system at a time, for decades.  We began our trainer certification program more than 20 years ago to help every school and community gain the tools it needs to create a safe, equitable, gender diverse, and successful system for all children.

Why Have a Trainer in Every School?

Most of us as professionals and parents came through our own high school, undergraduate, and graduate education without seeing the brain scans Michael and our GI trainers show participants and audiences; thus, most of us didn’t realize how important “boy” and “girl” are to improving literacy, STEM, and other academic performance, battling against negative school culture, ending school-to-prison pipelines, grappling with child mental health issues, lowering digital stress and increasing digital success, and helping all children succeed in immensely diverse environments.

We didn’t know what we didn’t know.

When most of us were getting our teacher certifications and degrees, the political landscape of many academic environments prohibited brain-based education in “boys” and “girls,” especially “boys and men,” despite the plethora of gender neuroscience available to the Schools of Education, Psychology, and Sociology.   Almost 40 years ago, Michael Gurian began researching brain science in order to get beyond this impediment.  More than 30 years ago, he began training educators and parents, and for more than 20 years, our Gurian Institute trainers have helped create successful brain-based programs in thousands of schools.

In the words of our second Executive Director, Kathy Stevens (1949-2011), co-author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently and The Minds of Boys:  “The initial pilot study at the University of Missouri-Kansas City proved the Gurian theory and strategies in six school districts there, and now we are expanding out into every possible school and community because every school administrator and every teacher we work with either intuits the issues boys and girls face, or has dis-aggregated data and seen issues up close.  Schools are looking for research-based training that is grounded in neuroscience to help them adapt curriculum, pedagogy, and cultural systems for best success.”

When Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens first conceived of the Trainer in Every School program fifteen years ago, it was difficult to implement logistically, because GI has generally held only one Training Certification Institute per year.  Now, however, because of online training technology, GI has the foundation and framework to equip every school with access to the training.  The expense of certifying a trainer in your school is low, as you’ll see at https://gurianinstitute.com/trainer-certification/.   If your school or organization chooses the In-House Trainer option, costs are lowest.

To certify trainers, schools have used school-based funds, donated parent funds, Title and other Federal funds, State, Municipal, Grant, Foundation, and nearly every other form of funding available for professional development and training.  The certification process provides 12 – 14 hours of professional development, and the trainer will be able, upon certification, to use the GI resources (targeted power points, organized video clips and presentations, and numerous other training tools) to provide PD in the school.  At our Winter Institute in Atlanta, Certification includes the two general days of learning, and then the Monday morning certification session.

How to Start the Process

The steps for certification are detailed here: https://gurianinstitute.com/trainer-certification/.  The prospective trainer can fill out the Trainer Application and once the trainer has been accepted, the new steps will begin.

We hope you and your school will take part in this initiative.  For those who wish to become certified at our Winter Training Institute in Atlanta, you can register here:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-winter-institute-2020/.  Once you register for the Winter Training Institute, send an email to gail@gurianinstitute.com to let her know you want to become a trainer.

Many thanks to all of you who are already certified and all of you who have helped your communities.  You inspire us to keep working!