For the second year in a row, we are offering a new track at our Summer Training Institute – Our Early Childhood Track.   These dynamic presenters have hands on experience in early childhood classrooms and services and lead our early childhood Pilots in Phoenix.  Marion Hill who is keynoting our SI inspired this early childhood track last year and the track has grown this year with the support of Natalie Alvarez, CEO of the Greater Phoenix Urban League, and dedicated colleagues in Head Start of Phoenix.

If you haven’t signed up yet, check out our Summer Institute website:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2022/.   We have more than 20 dynamic, must-see presentations.  Register on the website or email gail@gurianinstitute.com to bring groups of five or more.  If you would like to get certified as a GI trainer, you can do that at the SI as well.

At the Cartwright, Byron Barry, Arizona State University, and Booker T. Washington Early Childhood Centers, our early childhood presenters work and serve.   They have decades of experience in this field working on such issues as literacy advancement, social emotional development, early math teaching, classroom and outside play, and many other essentials.  Our early childhood presenters have also pioneered work specifically on boys and girls issues in early childhood programs and schools in Phoenix.   Here’s more about what they will present.

Bringing Families of Color into the Frame:  Parent, Family, and Community Engagement in Early Childhood Environments, with Phyllis Aro-Trejo, Caseworker Supervisor, and Lauren Paiva, Education Director, of Booker T. Washington Early Childhood Center, Gurian Certified Trainers.  As caseworker supervisor at Booker T. Washington School, Phyllis has worked to bring parents on board with a child’s early education for more than two decades.   Lauren Paiva directs many of these efforts at the school, which is becoming the newest Gurian Institute Model School.  In this workshop, Phyllis and Lauren will share practical strategies and anecdotes from their work in their community  – a how-to of what works and what does not work with busy and distracted parents, including parents whose native language is not English, and parents of color.

Teaching a Love of Words:  Best Practices for Literacy Learning in Preschool Classrooms with Dr. Ariana Lopez, Gurian Certified Trainer.  As Education Director at the Greater Phoenix Urban League, Ariana leads educational innovations in early childhood literacy learning.  She has worked with diverse populations, including ESL learners, for more than two decades.  In the Greater Phoenix Urban League – Gurian Institute Pilots in Phoenix, Arizona, Ariana has made sure that literacy is a major classroom focus.  In this workshop, Ariana will share and model programs and strategies that have worked to augment and improve early literacy at the Cartwright Child Care Center, a Gurian Model School.  She will also discuss the differences in how boys and girls come to literacy and share strategies from coed and single gender classes.

Essential Early Childhood:  Boys and Girls Learn Differently Strategies for Our Youngest Children, with Dr. Ariana Lopez and Cynthia Reynolds, Gurian Certified Trainers.   This workshop grows from the Gurian Institute Pilot programs in the Head Start and the Greater Phoenix Urban League (GPUL) classrooms in the Cartwright School District, including at Cartwright Child Care Center, a Gurian Model School. Ariana is Education Coordinator and Cynthia is a Mentor Coach with GPUL.  Their session will feature more than a dozen strategies, including single sex groupings, that they have used successfully in early childhood environments for meeting the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of boys and girls.  The chosen strategies successfully integrate into Teaching Strategies Gold, Creative Curriculum for Preschool, and CLASS. 

The Power of Diversity:  Teaching and Mentoring Latino and Dual Language Learners, with Marlene Ordaz and Shandeen Gomez, Gurian Certified Trainers.  For over 40 years collectively, Marlene and Shandeen have worked in early childhood populations and built bridges into elementary and secondary education, focusing specifically on learning, literacy, and cultural climate strategies that work with Latino populations and dual language learners.  Marlene is Associate Director of the Greater Phoenix Urban League’s Head Start programs and Shandeen is Director of the Urban Strategies Early Head Start Program.  Their workshop explores barriers of language and culture on both the student and teacher and ways to address the needs of our Latino and dual language populations.  Participants will learn techniques and strategies for  engaging students in a culturally and linguistically diverse learning community.

For more information on the Summer Training Institute and to register, please visit:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2022/.