As you plan for Professional Development in 2019, we at GI hope you will utilize brain-based training during the new year.  Please contact gail@gurianinstitute.com to start this conversation.  Michael Gurian can come to your community to provide professional development; our certified and master trainers can come; and/or your team can learn Online.  We have Pilots and one-year programs that also support systemic transformation in schools and communities.

In our schools and communities right now, boys are struggling.

*They are often undermotivated in comparison to girls, receiving more than 2/3s of the Ds and Fs in our classrooms, but less than 40% of the As.

*From very young, boys are inordinately punished, many times for “offenses” that are not actually abnormal behavior for boys; boys of color often enter a school-to-prison pipeline via this mismatch of the male brain, boy culture, and a school’s or institution’s approach to child development.

*Boys get lower standardized test scores than girls in general, and in literacy, language arts, and similar fields, the male to female gap is three times higher than the girl-to-boy math/science gap.

*Depression, anxiety, suicide, substance and opioid abuse, and brain disorder diagnoses among males are increasing; many of these diagnoses are moving rapidly into pre-pubescent age groups.

Our girls also face potent obstacles.

*Girls’ STEM learning is improving in our classrooms and yet retaining young women in higher level of Tech and Engineering jobs is barely improving.

*Girls are engaged in bullying behavior towards one another and brutal behavior towards themselves at unprecedented rates.

*Pressure on girls to hyper-multi-task is partially the cause of increased depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide attempts among girls.

*Social media, screens, smart phones, and other artificial methods of creating the “connective tissue” that girls want also alters their brains, in many cases, toward negative growth.

Our students are “brains” at work AND they have diversely sexualized and gendered brains. This is even true of transgender brains—a female-to-male and a male-to-female also experience male and female brains.  Our colleague, Daniel Amen, recently published a study based on nearly 50,000 brain scans (he summarizes it here: https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/women-more-active-brains-than-men/.)

In 1996, my GI team and I realized that combining brain-based education sex- and gender-differentiated training was a powerful way for professionals and parents to meet success goals in educating and raising children.  As diversity in classrooms has evolved, so has our professional development.

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Testimonials

​”I wanted to thank you for the excellent presentation.  I found it to be one of the most useful seminars I have attended in my 38-year career. Your seminar has already impacted the way I teach boys. I went right back to school and taught the helping verbs by making my kids march the helping verbs outside to a military-style cadence.  The kids loved it and learned them quickly as a result.” – 2nd grade teacher

“Relevant research and real-world ideas and connections to use in my classroom—as well as at home with my own two children. This was the best workshop/training I’ve been to in twenty years!” – 3rd grade teacher

​”Thank you for a wonderful presentation!  You energized me to think about brain research around gender again and have caused me to think critically about some areas around this topic.  I have already used many of your ideas into writing training that I have been conducting and it has made it that much stronger – thank you again!” – Literacy & Social Studies Coordinator

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Our Work Can Be Accessed On-Site, Online, and Through a Combination of the Two

Male and female brains, biochemistry, and cultures are so profoundly a part of the classroom, they must be understood if the classroom is to be successful. You as professionals and parents likely know this instinctively, especially when you observe and disaggregate data in an unofficial or official capacity.  The Gurian Institute professional development and pilot programs operate with data points to help solve issues in schools and communities.  

Our Minds of Boys and Girls® Online Course is one way of receiving professional development. It includes six hours of training in neuroscience, sex/gender, practical tools, and classroom strategies that align with addressing the gaps and needs of students and learners. You can take the course as it fits your schedule.  Whole teams at schools can take it by special arrangement with our GI staff, and it can comprise a PD day via online assets or be broken up into Units.

Please check out this link to look at an online course. https://gurianinstitute.com/boys-and-girls-learn-differently-online-course/. You will see testimonials and data points.

Our on-site PD and training at your school or in your community is dynamic and culture changing.  It utilizes the same assets as the online course and further assets with more facilitator-participant interaction because Michael Gurian and/or our Certified Trainer is on site with you for this PD.  Both our online courses and our on-site professional development specifically target these outcomes:

*Crucial Success Gains in Student Achievement and School Turnaround
*Positive Gains in Student Behavior, including Lowered Discipline Referrals
*Dynamic, Useful, and Highly Practical Tools You Can Use Right Now
*Applied Brain-Based Gender Science Proven Successful in Thousands of Classrooms
*Deeper Understanding of Boys, Girls, and the Whole Gender Spectrum
*Systemic Change Models That Can Transform School Culture.

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More Testimonials (also please see www.gurianinstitute.com/success/)

​“I find myself thinking about and talking about things learned during your training.  What a terrific way to frame the teaching I do to ALL my kids, boys and girls.  It was the perfect energy boost as we start a new school year.” – Middle school teacher

“I was drawn to this seminar by the fact that you included girls—as the mother of a daughter I don’t want her education to take a back seat!” – Middle school language arts teacher

“This is one of the best PDs I have had after 18 years of teaching. So much of what we normally get is repetitive ‘how-to’ information with new names to old ideas. This PD was fresh, new information that will be helpful and quickly instituted in the classroom. Hopefully, our whole school and parents will be able to receive this information.” 10th grade teacher

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Many of the GI options are noted here. https://gurianinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/gurian_institute_information.pdf.

The following pages should also be useful in helping you look at the next school year’s PD, growth, funding and focus.

https://gurianinstitute.com/training-for-brain-based-teaching-%e2%80%8bwith-a-gender-focus/

https://gurianinstitute.com/packages-and-pricing/

https://gurianinstitute.com/success/

https://gurianinstitute.com/institute-testimonials/

No two children are exactly alike. No two teachers or parents are either. We are diverse! That is why both understanding male/female brains and applying innovations to target those brains has become one of the keys to success in classrooms.  A million years of human history walk into our classrooms with every child. All that history is laden with X and Y chromosomes, sex and gender on the brain, and female and male learning. Nature, nurture, and culture all matter, and all of them work best when we innovate diversely towards the minds of boys and girls.

Thank you for being a Gurian Institute supporter. We hope to see you online and onsite very soon!

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“Make it two days. Great day. I generally do not like in-service because after 20+ years of them I’ve seen it all. This was eye-opening and made me want to know more. Thanks for making today fun instead of frustrating, while providing ideas that will help me change my classroom experience in positive ways.” 11th grade teacher

“The Gurian Institute has helped us to bring our faculty and staff to new heights in educating young men. By giving the new faculty members this training, we are able to facilitate their transition to teaching boys. By providing it to our seasoned veterans, it affirms why certain lessons and approaches work with our students. It also has encouraged collegiality amongst our faculty and has encouraged them to share best practices. If your school is looking for professional development that is truly teacher and parent-friendly, I encourage you to contact The Gurian Institute.” Rob Kodama, Director of Admissions, Crespi Carmelite High School, Los Angeles, CA

“We greatly enjoyed the insight and observations Michael Gurian shared with us about raising, relating to, inspiring, and educating boys and girls. His dynamic talk left us with much to discuss — just what a speaker ought to inspire!” –Christie Henry, President, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools Parent Association

“Michael was a pleasure to have in our school community! We had representatives from thirty schools and school districts at his talks. Both the parents and teachers were inspired to learn more after hearing his presentation. He has a knack for making information on the minds of boys and girls both interesting and entertaining by keeping his audience laughing out loud.” Meredith Bloomberg, Chairperson of the Parent Engagement Network and Graland Parents Association, Graland Country Day School, Denver, Colorado