BTG+2011

[|Yokohama International School] presents
=Bridging the Gap 2011= Thursday to Saturday 24-26 November 2011

Our guest speaker, John Joseph, brings us the most current information about learning with the brain in mind. John Joseph is passionate about research into how the human brain learns and the opportunity to reflect on our parenting, teaching and learning. Nutrition, sleep, exercise, emotional engagement and safety from threat are key elements of biological conditions the brain needs to meet optimal levels. Learn more about how to keep our brains working to their full potential.

Tanner Auditorium,Thursday, 24 November 2011 7:15-8:45pm
This session will provide information about parenting and providing educational support at home. These sessions deal with issues such as homework, nutrition, sleep, the Internet, attitude, wellbeing, emotions and conflict. //Childcare is available for kindergarten age and up free with reservations from 6:45pm until 8:45pm. Please email Sunita Devadas at devadass@yis.ac.jp for reservations. Childcare will be in the PTSA room in the Kindergarten Building.//

Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner 24 November 2011 6:00-7:00pm Join us for a Thanksgiving turkey dinner in the cafeteria brought to you by Zest Catering. The whole family is welcome! Adults 1200yen High School Students 700yen Middle School Students 600yen Elementary Students 500yen Please purchase tickets for dinner at the YIS School Store from 31st October to 22nd November

= Learning with the Brain in Mind: Focus on Learning =

Friday, 25 November 2011 9:00am-4:00pm
For YIS Staff, Parents and Alumni An exploration of how the brain learns and practical applications for classroom learning.

Learning with the Brain in Mind
Keynote for Full Faculty Tanner Auditorium, 9:00-10:15am
 * Weighted Elements-why is there an achievement gap?
 * Motivation and confidence-essential ingredients fro successful students
 * The Four Worlds-building confident and capable learners with a focus on talent and the future
 * Managing Stress-coping with the pressures of school
 * Brain Care-bulding healthy sleep patterns

//Break// //Venues: Coffee and Tea in ELC Foyer and Cafeteria// //10:15-10:45am//

Information Processing and Learning and Career Profiling
with John Joseph Focus for Middle and High School Teachers Cafeteria, 10:45-12:00 noon
 * Please bring your computers to this session

Making Thinking Visible
with Junko Cancemi and the ELC staff ELC Piazza First Floor, Focus for ELC and Elementary Teachers 10:45-12:00

//Lunch (We will create a sign up for Zest if you would like to have lunch)// //12:00-1:00pm// //*Please sign up for Unconference topics in the cafeteria.//

Thinking, Learning and Memory
with John Joseph Focus for ELC and Elementary Teachers Cafeteria, 1:00-2:15pm

Unconference
Rooms TBD, 1:00-2:15pm This unconventional part of the day is driven by the participants. What sparked your thinking from the day's learning? What would you like to discuss or act on? Write up your idea on the whiteboard in the cafeteria. After lunch, we'll meet in groups to continue our thinking.

Mini Wokshops
Let's finish the day with something good for our brains! Choose a workshop for each session. A sign up will be circulated soon with venues. Not all workshop descriptors are below. Please check back soon.

Session One: 2:15-3:00pm Session Two: 3:15-4:00pm (in Japanese) || Yoga || Diet, Stress and Hormones || Music, Rhythm & the Brain || A Piece of ZEN, Sitting Meditation || Drugs in Sport ? School: Old debate/New Forum || The Joys and Challenges of Learning a Second Language || (in English) || Pilates || Diet, Stress and Hormones || Music, Rhythm & the Brain || A Piece of ZEN, Sitting Meditation || Virtual Reality || The Joys and Challenges of Learning a Second Language ||
 * **Venue** || **Black Box** || **Dance Studio** || **M103** || **Brad’s Room** || **Shane's Room** || **Loft** || **M102** ||
 * **Session** 1 || Brain Gym
 * **Venue** || **Black Box** || **Dance Studio** || **M103** || **Brad’s Room** || **Shane's Room** || **E108** || **M102** ||
 * **Session 2** || Brain Gym
 * Brain Gym
 * Drugs in Sport ? School: Old debate/New Forum
 * Pilates-the mind body exercise
 * Yoga-Changing the Brain's Stressful Habits
 * Diet, Stress & Hormones: the brain-body connection
 * Music, Rhythm & the Brain
 * A Piece of ZEN, Sitting Meditation
 * Brain Games-virtual reality
 * The Joys and Challenges of learning a second language

Brain Gym helps integrate both hemispheres of the brain. We can enhance our performance and the classroom and everyday life with an integrated brain. Would you like to be at peace with yourself under any circumstance? How about bridging the GAP between what you feel/think and what you say/do? All this is possible through awareness and applying some simple exercises to the situation at hand. Anybody can do this.We will be addressing these issues though experimental exercises. Come and test it out for yourself Yukino Saito is a certified Brain Gym instructor and trainer and Educational Kinesiology Instructor. She has been working with Brain Gym for 6 years and is doing private sessions and courses in Motomachi. Her clients include athletes, artists, students, teachers, business people who go through large amounts of stress, among others. Shougen is a lecturer in Dance Therapy at Ariake College Education and Arts. __**Drugs in** **Sport** **? School: Old debate/New Forum with Alex Thomas**__ Physical Education teachers have often hosted the debate on Drugs in Sport. But what of the, sometimes uncomfortable, news that young students around the world are taking cognitive enhancing drugs to finish that essay, sit the SAT's, lift their grades or to simply not fail? This workshop will explore the ethics of 'Study Drugs' in schools and also provide alternatives to better brain function and learning... like Movement. //Movement is CENTRAL to learning.//
 * __Brain Gym with Yukino Saito & Shougen__**

Alex is a physical education teacher at YIS.

Pilates is called the mind-body exercise. Enjoy a pilates session focusing on breathing and spine flexibility. Find the connection in your body by working from the core.
 * __Pilates with Leanne Erickson__**

Leanne is a certified Stott Pilates instructor in mat and reformer. Before coming to YIS, Leanne worked at Shambhala Yoga in Singapore conducting group classes on the mat and reformer as well as private instruction.



**__Yoga: Changing The Brain's Stressful Habits with Shanel Catasti__**
How yoga changes your brain: retrain your automatic stress reaction, and replace it with one more conducive to happiness and overall well-being through breathing, meditation and the yoga asanas.   Shanel is a certified RYT 200 Yoga instructor who has been teaching yoga to adults and children since 2005. Shanel has taught yoga in schools, yoga studios and sporting clubs in London and Yokohama as well as private sessions. Gain an insight into how dietary habits can stress the body, lead to hormonal imbalances, systemic malfunction and a range of related symptoms. Discover the importance of the gut/brain connection.
 * __Diet, Stress & Hormones: the brain-body connection__**

Dan Mullaney is a certified functional nutrition practitioner and metabolic typing advisor with extensive experience in the health, wellness and exercise fields. He is currently studying with some of the leading figures in functional medicine and natural health.

A discussion and presentation on the research and findings about how we react to music and how it stimulates our brains. How does music affect you? You might want to try playing a special playlist in the background in your room. It has proven to increase test scores by up to 60%! We will perform an African Rhythm piece on percussion instruments. Come join and play in an African Percussion Circle. There are enough instruments of about 20 people. Some on drums and others on percussion hand instruments.
 * __Music, Rhythm & the Brain with Brad Johnston__**

Brad Johnston career as a professional musician spans over 40 years. Brad has performed with symphonies, concert bands, marching bands, percussion ensembles, musical stage play orchestras, as well as rock, country, and jazz bands. He has played on movie soundtracks, TV shows, radio programs and popular music CD’s. He is an accomplished composer, and his original compositions have been recorded by artists in France, Canada, the US and Japan. Presently, Brad teaches music at Yokohama International School.

An introduction to just sitting-zazen. Zazen, an every day practice to submit to a simple way of life using our flesh, bone, muscle and marrow. A practice to surrender ourselves to tranquillity. Simple life is manifested only when our life, our circumstances are clear. When life is clear it gives us a great opportunity to manifest tranquillity in life. It is a difficult matter to manifest or appreciate simplicity, but we have to do it because it is our original nature. We do not need to search for some state of mind to achieve but, just that process –just sitting-is it, is the realization of this moment, of this life. Whatever ideas we have about it, they are nothing but a part of impermanence. Cushion /zafu will be provided & we will sit together after a brief introduction.
 * __A Piece of ZEN, Sitting Meditation with Lester T. Yoshinami-Hitachi__**

Presiding since 2001, Lester T. Yoshinami-Hitachi is Zen Abbot and Executive Officer of Soto Zen Fujisan Jyurinji Temple and Sogadera Temple in Shizuoka Prefecture. Born in Hawaii, Yoshinami-Hitachi is the second son of a Zen Buddhist missionary. He returned to Japan as a child and eventually received his diploma from Yokohama International School. After finishing his undergraduate education from Sophia University in 1979, Yoshinami-Hitachi went on to finish an MA from Cornell University majoring in Intellectual History/Thought and Religion in the East. Monastic practice at the head Soto monastary Daihonzan Sojiji. He joined the Adminisrative Headquarters of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokyo & worked in the Division of International Affairs to bridge the gap in the area of human relations, education & publications between Zen Centers & organizations in the West. Come and enjoy a stimulating brain experience and play with virtual reality with Elif.
 * __Virtual Reality with Elif Raskin__**

Elif is the IT Facilitator at YIS.

What does it entail to learn a second language? To learn a second language, learn through a second language, learn about a second language... We will look at strategies and philosophies that inform first language maintenance and second language acquisition that help guide us as we learn. We will look at the purpose of language learning. What is it that you want to gain from learning a second language? Experience what it is like to learn in and through a language that is not your mother tongue and gain insight into your own learning in language in this workshop.
 * __The Joys and Challenges of Learning a Second Language__**

Sunita Devadas teaches English as an Additional Language at Yokohama International School. She is from India where there are 22 official languages. Sunita's interest in language comes from her early years in India and immersion in a multilingual society and the past 20 years in Japan where she learned another language as an adult. These valuable insights of how language and culture are intertwined and how communication and context is at the heart of language learning will be explored in this workshop.

=Pecha Kucha=

Tanner Auditorium, Saturday, 26 November 2011 7:00-9:00pm
A night of light lectures, drinks and canapes. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images X 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. Visit the Pecha Kucha site for more information.