Audience members share takeaways from

 three GPS presentations

Glenbard Parent Series (GPS) speaker Michael Thompson (above) gave three fantastic presentations yesterday. His presentations were very well received by parents, educators and community leaders.

Kristen Daniels, director development & social responsibility at B.R. Ryall YMCA of Northwestern DuPage County, attended Thompson's noon presentation regarding "The Pressured Student: Adolescence is Hard Work." "I heard Dr. Thompson emphasize that children crave meaningful relationships and the desire to be useful.  This calls perfect attention to the social responsibility side of our mission," Daniels said. "I look forward to partnering with all the other resources/individuals who were in the room today to help provide volunteer opportunities, mentoring and engagement to those students.  We want to help fuel that "out of the classroom" education that builds confident, well-rounded and successful kids.  And if we help achieve those goals, we might be building our own pipeline of future employees one day.  Dr. Thompson's description of a great kid would also make for a great colleague."

          

"I enjoyed Dr. Thompson's perspective - that education is a lifelong process," said Dr. Jim Shannon, pastor at Peoples Community Church.

             

After attending "Coming to Grips with Girl Overachievement and (Relative) Boy Underachievement" presentation, West English department chairman Ben Peterselli said, "I enjoyed this thoughtful and engaging conversation about the myriad possibilities that may account for gender differences in achievement. We explored the divergent expectations and messages sent by parents and schools, as well as the differing ways that adolescent boys and girls accept motivation and view their futures. I left thinking about the expectations I've set for my children (sons and daughter) and my students (boys and girls) concerning their achievement and success."

 

Glenbard West parent Diane Sakach attended "How to Raise Responsible and ConfidentTeens" last night. "Every style of parenting creates its own dynamic yet the overriding goal is to develop responsible children, those who can meet the moral demands of life," Sakach said. "Focus on the big things like integrity, empathy and self-discipline by creating a consistent framework and by role modeling.  Strive to know,accept and love your child's individuality because the will to be oneself is part of their transition to adulthood."

      

A Message to the Depressed.

The Most Powerful Description Of Depression I’ve Ever Heard! 

 the  Emmy Gaffey Memorial Foundation 

The Glenbard Parent Series is grateful to the  Emmy Gaffey Memorial Foundation for becoming an annual sponsor of GPS this year  Please note the attached youtube for an excellent description of depression.  Also  note the beautiful Emmy bracelets  to build awareness and support.  Funds will benefit  the Glenbard Parent Series and CARES

http://lalaemmyland.com/product-category/gpscares-bracelets/

"The Most Powerful Description Of Depression I’ve Ever Heard! Not only does Sky Williams brilliantly captures a perfect definition of depression, he also gives brilliant advice to anyone suffering from depression and their ‘Buddy’. Keep one bracelet and give one to a friend you think needs a little love and hope. 100% of donation goes to NAMI or CARES/Glenbard Parent Series. Just tell me which you’d prefer.  The green crystal symbolizes hope, and the white fresh water pearl symbolizes peace and clarity ."

"Yak Attack: The cyber bullying needs to stop", 
THE GLEN BARD, GWHS student newspaper
(reprinted with permission)
Link to pdf of the article

Wondering about YikYak?  Learn more here:

Cyberbulling Research Center on Yik Yak
Posted by Justin W. Patchin 

 http://cyberbullying.us/yik-yak/

PLEASE COME AND JOIN US AT OUR GPS EVENTS! 

As a bonus, dine at any of these excellent Glen Ellyn restaurants- Fire and Wine, Bistro Monet, Shannon's Irish Pub and Tap House Grill- on the night of a GPS event, and enjoy exciting special offers. Offers valid night of the event only.  Proof of attendance required.

PEC: The Parent Education Consortium of the North Shore


PEC Sept. calendar for the 2014-15 academic year is posted here for your information. Note that the Glenbard Parent Series program are always included.  Feel free to attend these attached events  as your interest and schedule permits.

The Parent Education Consortium of the North Shore (PEC) is a centralized source of information on parent resources and programs that promote stronger schools, family and community life. PEC is comprised of representatives from the community and parent/teacher organizations who offer programming on parenting topics through joint planning and shared resources. The Calendar of educational programs for parents and educators is compiled from submissions provided by the sponsoring organizations.


PEC events September through May,

The PEC website, www.peccalendar.org, is a relational database -- you can search by date, speaker, topic, venue, etc.

Editor's Choice for September, 2014 (see Calendar for full details):

1) FAN starts off fast with two super programs in September: Jennifer Senior, New York Times best-selling author of All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, on September 19, at New Trier HS/Northfield; and Harvard's Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Ed.D., speaking on her classic text, The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other, on September 30 at Evanston Township HS.

2) Michael Thompson, Ph.D. fans will be happy to know that he is doing three events on September 16 for the Glenbard school system. Just plan on spending the day out there!

3) Stanford's Marianne Cooper, Ph.D. will talk on September 17, a distillation of her powerful research for her new book Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times. Sponsored by The Book Stall at Chestnut Court, and held at the University Club in Chicago.

4) FANfare 2014 speaker Carrie Goldman will draw distinctions between bullying and social conflict in a talk at St. Joseph School in Wilmette on September 17, sponsored by their school board and PSO.

Don't miss three special events by Dr. Michael Thompson:

“How to Raise Responsible and Confident Teens “

Tuesday, Sept 16

7:00 p.m.

Glenbard South Auditorium

“The Pressured Student: Adolescence is Hard Work”

Tuesday, Sept 16

12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

District #15 Marquardt Administration Center

“Coming to Grips with Girl Overachievement and (Relative) Boy Underachievement“

Tuesday, Sept 16

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Glenbard West Library

Dr. Michael Thompson is a superstar among elite parent - speakers and the author of several New York Times best selling books including Rising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, Best Friends/Worst Enemies:  Understanding the Social Worlds of Children and the Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Achieve Success in School and in Life. An international consultant and highly sought after speaker specializing in children and families, Dr. Thompson has made numerous appearances on the Today Show, the Oprah Show, and CBS’ 60 Minutes.

In these important GPS programs, participants will discover strategies for successful communication, and the proven methods of parenting that produce the most competent teens. Follow the psychological journey that children experience as they negotiate and manage their school careers, and learn how the wisest adults can best help them on their way.

CALL HIM ISHMAEL AND

CALL HIM A SURVIVOR

            Ishmael Beah has more in common with the main character of Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick than simply his name. He is a survivor. And he has encountered pure evil.

            On August 27^th attendance records for the Glenbard Parent Series were broken when almost 1,300 people attended Beah’s presentation at Glenbard West High School to hear him speak on his experiences as a thirteen year old forced to serve in the military during the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone. His experiences became the basis of his celebrated book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

            For almost three years Beah was forced to serve in his government’s army. He and boys like him were manipulated with drugs and violence to fight. He was forced to commit unspeakable acts or risk certain death.

            Luckily, Beah was rescued by UNICEF and taken to a rehabilitation center where he got the help he needed to be de-programed from the violent behavior he’d come to know. He made his way to the United States and through his extraordinary circumstances was adopted and eventually graduated from Oberlin College.

            Beah has been named a special UNICEF Ambassador and spoken before the United Nations and the Council on Foreign Relations. As a writer and frequent speaker, Beah’s wants the Western world to understand the “humanity behind the war.”

            Beah often uses humor to soften the darkness of his subject matter. He quipped that while in college he could often sit for ten to twelve hours reading without moving. This is a skill he learned after having to silently crouch in the brush for that many hours waiting to ambush.  

            Primarily, Beah wants young people to understand that even under the worst conditions imaginable, “there is strength in the human spirit.”  He also wants them to know that it is wrong to glamorize violence the way Hollywood does.

            In reality, those who experience violence get caught up in it and then perpetuate it resulting in a vicious cycle that is hard to break. “Once violence starts, there is a consequence to it. It starts with words and is psychological.”

            Beah returns often to Sierra Leone and is committed to helping break the cycle.

By Suzanne Burdett – Glenbard parent     

Notes from Peter Brown’s presentation, Make it Stick

Glenbard South

September 2, 2014

·         Graduate of Lloyd College, author of Jumping the Job Track and The Fugitive Wife (historical fiction)

·         He is a writer and his brother-in-law is Henry Roediger, other author is Mark McDaniel; Roediger and McDaniel are cognitive scientists at Washington University in St Louis

·         Approached by James D McDonnell Foundation in St Louis around 2001-02—started with question: what teaching and studying strategies lead to better memory and learning, team of 11 cognitive scientists headed by Roediger studied the question

·         Big idea: most effective strategy for learning is trying to recall, trying to get out of memory; we think learning as trying to get things into the mind, most effective learning comes from trying to get it out of the mind

·         Big idea: “desirable difficulties” (Elizabeth Bjork) some difficulties that slow learning down result in better learning and longer memory; examples—type a little out of focus, some dysfluency leads to better memory, some letters missing, sequence of lecture that doesn’t follow the sequence in the reading, effort strengthens memory

·         Big idea: learn it better when you mix up type of problems in practice; interleaved—varied or mixed up practice, example—mix up painters and participants learned to identify them better even though they thought it was better to focus on at a time; people persist in thinking it is better to focus on learning one thing at a time even when study shows that it is better to mix up the problems

·         Big idea: when you are required to generate the answer before you are taught and then you are taught the solution after, you remember the solution better; priming effect—found what you know, found the gap, then taught

·         New memory resides in hippocampus, takes time to move to long term memory, consolidation—brain tries to make sense of material, effort to retrieve, consolidate makes it stronger in LTM

·         Study: more test periods, better recall; repeated study periods didn’t help, retrieval practice did help

·         Re-reading creates illusion of matery

·         Better to keep practicing items you know and those you don’t know—better memory for all of them

·         Spaced practice works better

·         Coach students to develop the habits and attitudes to succeed

·         Carol Dweck—students who believe effort matters select more challenging problems, better to praise effort

·         “reach back, carry forward”

·         mix up topics and problem types

·         use self-testing to calibrate judgment

·         experiment, elaborate, reflect

·         practice retrieving new learning from memory

·         adopt a growth mindset

·         mental effort increases mental ability

·         teacher applications: low stakes quizzes, retrieval games (Quia.com), weekly essential question, study guides

·         Mary Pat Wenderoth at Univ of WA, intro college biology, reduce failure rate, especially with minority women—daily 10 minutes to free recall and write down everything you remember from class, then look at your notes

·         Before reading something ask yourself, “What do I hope to learn from this?” and read for answer

·         Short answer better to generate answers but multiple choice is better than nothing

·         Most research so far in lab settings, just starting to research in classrooms

·         Mnemonics provide way of organizing information

 A Systematic Approach to Teaching Social Interpersonal Skills to Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Social Difficulties with Scott Bellini Ph.D

The Glenbard Parent Series:  (GPS) Navigating Healthy Families presents A Systematic Approach to Teaching Social Interpersonal Skills to Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Social Difficulties with Scott Bellini Ph.D at 12:00pm -2:00p.m. Friday, Sept 26, at the Community Consolidated School District #93 Administration Center in Carol Stream.

The workshop will provide an overview of the Building Social Relationships (BSR) model developed by Dr. Bellini. The five-step model is a systematic and comprehensive framework to help guide parents and practitioners in the development and implementation of social skills programming. The session will provide the foundation for the model, and cover specific information on how to assess social functioning and evaluate outcomes. Dr. Bellini will share data and examples of session structure plans for social skills strategies implemented at his clinic, the Social Skills Research Center

Scott Bellini, PhD is the Director of the Social Skills Research Clinic (SSRC), a university based center specializing in developing and examining the outcomes of social skill interventions for youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders. He is also a faculty member in the School Psychology program at Indiana University, Bloomington.  He is currently conducting research on professional development outcomes for educators, anxiety disorders, and social skill interventions, including video modeling for youth with ASD. He has published numerous research manuscripts and has provided consultation and training to families and professionals in over 35 states on the topic of social skills programming.. He is the author of the book, Building Social Relationships, which was named the 2007 Literary Work of the Year by the Autism Society of America.

Participants are encouraged to register at ww.casedupage.com. for this free event which is open to the public. CPDUs are available for education professionals.

 GPS is generously sponsored by the Cebrin Goodman Center, CASE. the College of DuPage, the DuPage Medical Group and the Trust Company of Illinois.

For information on all GPS programming go to www.glenbardgps.org or contact Gilda Ross, Glenbard Student and Community Projects Coordinator, at 630-942-7678  and by email gilda_ross@glenbard.org.