THE TEACHABILITY FACTOR

COMING in 2025
  • Wednesday 11 June 2025
  • 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
  • Adina Apartment Hotel Sydney Darling Harbour, 55 Shelley St King Street Wharf, Syndey, NSW, 2000
TrainerDr Deborah MacNamara (CAD)
CPD Hrs6
IncludesCatering, handbook and certificate

Why teaching is getting harder and what to do when all else fails

Teaching is getting harder, not easier. Despite the enormous efforts and resources of schools to embrace technology, refine the curriculum and hone the pedagogy, the teachability of students is declining, Faced with an epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioural problems, it is taking a toll on teachers' and principals' mental and emotional well-being. The implications for education and the community are profound. Educators are asking themselves what went wrong. More importantly: What can we do about it?

Teaching 'harder' is not the answer; enhancing teachability is. The Teachability Factor are the determinants of learning that are psychological in nature: developmental, relational and emotional. This workshop will explore the science and theory behind teachability and its practical implications for schools and classrooms. With insight and warmth, this workshop addresses the roots of the growing crisis in children’s emotional functioning, maturation, and capacity to learn. It will resonate with educators' experiences and point to a way forward that is as powerful as it is surprising. 

The quality of our relationship with our children determines the quality of our influence on them.

In The Teachability Factor, Canadian child development expert Dr Deborah MacNamara explores the nature of childhood and maturation through a relational-developmental approach to join the dots of how and why student teachability is declining. She affirms the paramount importance of healthy teacher-student and parent/carer-child relationships. And explains how the influence of peers, magnified by social media and the virtual world, is replacing teachers and significant adults in the lives of young people. Displaced attachment to peers – peers that are not invested to nurture and lead the child for the child’s own benefit, can lead young people to experience constant anxiety, and a fear of rejection, because the attachment is conditional on fitting in. Understand how the mechanisms by which  "peer orientation" emerges and disrupts students teachability and contributes to poor learning outcomes. And discover the emerging phenomenon even bigger than peer orientation - our children are becoming more "alpha", as they look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. It provides a powerful explanation for contagion behaviour, schoolyard bullying and youth violence. In today’s society of competing attachments with peers and devices, these factors disrupt the school atmosphere, undermine family/community cohesion, and foster an aggressively hostile and sexualised youth culture. 

Course outline:

  • Why students are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever: four natural contexts for learning and why these contexts are being eroded in contemporary society
  • Teachability introduced: the role of emergent functioning in learning and behaviour, including curiosity and sense of agency
  • Teachability & the adaptive brain: correction, resilience and neural plasticity
  • Teachability & the developing brain: problem solving, self-control, and the capacity to process conflicting thoughts and feelings. Understand the emotional roots of resistance, dominance, and aggression and how to diffuse conflict
  • Teachability & the heart: stuckness and defendedness in students who don't engage
  • Teachability & relationship: how attachment is meant to develop, what hinders its formation and the effect on student-teacher relationships. Insight into strategies for minimising the impact of peer orientation and alpha behaviour
  • Raising teachability through attachment: overcoming students reticence to attach and cultivating a context of connection and engagement 
  • Raising teachability with stuck kids: developmental stuckness as the most common problem of childhood and its impact on learning 

This workshop will provide invaluable support to teachers and principals as they confront the challenges of educating students in this troubled world.

Presented by: Dr Deborah MacNamara (Canada). A dynamic speaker and bestselling author, Dr. Deborah MacNamara is sought after for her expertise on topics such as childhood development, adolescence, parenting, and educating kids. Dr. MacNamara is the author of the bestselling book, Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (or anyone who acts like one), and a children’s picture book, The Sorry Plane. As a clinical counsellor, educator, and researcher with more than 25 years’ experience working with families and teachers, she translates the science of human development into stories that transferrable to the home to classroom. She is on faculty at the Neufeld Institute where she works with Gordon Neufeld to make sense of kids to the adults who are responsible for them. Deborah resides in Vancouver, Canada with her husband and two children.

Audience: 

Education Professionals: All education professionals who work with children or youth including, but not limited to K–12 Classroom Teachers, School Counsellors, Learning Assistance/Resource Teachers, School Administrators, School Paraprofessionals including Special Education Assistants, Classroom Assistants and Childcare Workers.

All other professionals who support behavioural challenges and complex learning needs in school aged children and teens including but not limited to: Psychologists, Clinical Counsellors, Family Therapists, Occupational Therapists,  Nurses, Social Workers, Speech Therapists, Addiction Counsellors, Youth Workers, Mental Health Workers, Youth Justice and Community Police Officers.

Tickets

Ticket typePriceQuantity

Early Bird Ticket

$365.00$265.00 AUDincl GST

Save $100

Available until 26 May 2025

$365.00$265.00 AUDincl GST

Standard Ticket

$365.00 AUDincl GST

$365.00 AUDincl GST

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