Posts for the ‘Education’ Category
Go Visual!: Non-Verbal INSTRUCTIONAL Techniques for Teachers
Michael Grinder Presents -
Go Visual!: Non-Verbal INSTRUCTIONAL Techniques for Teachers
This training will focus on non-verbal forms of communication teachers can use to increase student retention. School doesn’t need to be a private club for visual learners. Let’s expand the membership!!
We know which students do well in school – the ones who arevisually-oriented. Have you ever asked yourself, “What can we do about the students who are bright enough and yet still can’t do ‘school’? This program is for you. During the 3 classes we will reveal the cognitive secrets of the “better students.” We will examine the non-verbals that allow more students to operate successfully in school.
Our topics will include:
- How the visual-oriented brain stores information compared to auditory and kinesthetic-oriented thinkers.
- How to design lessons to increase students’ success.
- Understanding the differences between daily work and tests; and how to prepare for a test.
- Effective use of non-verbals to increase long-term memory.
- The differences between long-term memory and the ability to pass a test.
- Examining your innate non-verbal style and knowing when to modify.
- How to recognize the differences between different learning styles.
Michael’s style is one that uses lots of group involvement, humor and energy. Participants really appreciate the delivery as well as the take-home value of the content of his work. An educator with 17 years of experience as a classroom instructor, Michael Grinder presents accelerated learning and group presentation skills workshops internationally. He uses behavioral modeling techniques and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) in business settings and in schools.
This training is appropriate for teachers grades 2-12, including special education.
This class is being offered for free this year only.
Sorry no clock hours or credit available this time.
Class dates: April 13, 20, and 27, 2009 Times: 4-6:30 PM
Location: Marshall Elementary School (Media Center)
6400 MacArthur Blvd, Vancouver
To Register: e-mail Krista Grinder
A Day with Michael Grinder
This is a rare opportunity to spend a day with a pioneer of classroom management. Michael Grinder taught for 17 years on 3 levels of education. He was runner-up for Washington State Teacher of the year. He has written over a dozen books based on his 6,000 classroom observations.
Michael is the leading advocate of increasing educators’ ability to recognize and respond to non-verbal patterns of communication. This is especially important because increasingly, we find ourselves educating populations that come from a culture other than ours. You will leave with an increase in cross-cultural sensitivities.
You will walk away with how to:
- Recognize the changes in our student population.
- Understand a parent conference; special attention will be given to a hostile parent conference.
- Use Michael’s most important discovery – not over-using eye contact.
- Identifying students, colleagues and people in your private world as to their degree of accommodation (dog-oriented) vs. independence (cat-oriented).
- Establish a working relationship with independent cats in your world.
- Handle situations where you feel stretched by an oblivious cat.
- Use Michael’s trilogy of classroom management:
- ENVoY
- A Healthy Classroom
- A Cat in the Dog House
- Increase your energy by decontaminating school and home life
- Identify your own tendencies as an educator; know when to be yourself and when to control your impulses.
- Identifying VAK (learning Styles)
Michael’s style is inspiring and humorous–your learning will be practical and long-lasting.
Date:
Saturday April 25th
8:30am – 3:30pm
(Authentic Mexican lunch available for purchase or encouraged to bring lunch)
Location:
Marshall Elementary/School Library
6400 MacArthur Blvd, Vancouver, WA
Cost:
$125.00 for registrations prior to March 15th
After this date $150.00
WA Clock Hours or Chapman College Semester Credit available the day of class
Presented by:
Krista Grinder & Associates
16621 259th Street,
Battle Ground, WA 98604
and
A & J Educational and Professional Consulting, LLC
Registration / Information :
Gail Grinder at 360-687-3238, or kristagrinder@msn.com
Corporate Cats and Dogs
Michael Grinder here,
It’s pretty cold here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m hard at work on my latest book and thought since we can’t do much outside during this cold weather maybe it’s time to learn something new.
Now, I know not all of you are in the deep-freeze as we are here… but we have developed a great, new way to learn some of the latest work I’ve been developing. Most of you know I’ve offered training materials for some time now. Well, I just learned how to offer great downloadable events too, so now is your chance to learn something new too…
Today through the end of the year, we are trying something very different. We are offering our newest training "Building Charisma in the Work Place: Corporate Cats and Dogs" A Live Training from Essex, England as an online product. Online delivery via mp3 allows us to bring you this great training at a lower cost.
Seriously, I think it’s a pretty great idea. At just $19.95 through December, (retail $24.95) you can give any manager or leader (including yourself) within your company (even works with members of your family) a complete audio recording of my 6-hour seminar that covers most of my entire book, "Charisma, The Art of Relationships." Plus I have added the complete pdf transcripts (over 80 pages) of the 6 hours of “Charisma in the Work Place.”
Here’s the special link to get your own:
http://www.michaelgrinder.com/corporate-cats-and-dogs-live-from-essex-england/
It’s the gift that will keep on giving all as you see your workplace transformed with the power of influence. Hope you Holiday plans are rolling along and getting ready for the new year too.
Talk soon,
Michael
p.s. This could be your best (and easiest) chance yet to transform your team and revitalize your leadership in the workplace – especially if you’re already too busy and have a limited budget.
Use more than words
Download this great cover article about the nonverbal work from a classroom management perspective from the National Staff Development Council (www.nsdc.org.) The original article was published in Professionally Speaking, a publication from the Ontario College of Teachers in Canada and written by Leanne Miller.
How can he be so rude…?
OUr friends at GLD Associates in the UK had this great article in their most recent newsletter. They have graciosuly allowed me to share with all of you.
How can he be so rude…?
Sarah was enjoying her new customer services role in the organisation where she’d worked for a number of years. There was only one fly in the ointment and that was the fact that she couldn’t stand her new manager, Tony. She considered him unbelievably rude and she was not alone – when she consulted her colleagues she discovered that they too found him ‘difficult’.
Things became so bad that HR had to become involved. However, although Tony accepted the evidence against him, he was baffled by it and therefore unable to change his ways. HR were equally in a dilemma since Tony was a highly successful manager in that he delivered results consistently.
What was going on?
Apparently, for instance, during meetings Tony was in the habit of working at his laptop appearing to take no notice of the proceedings. He would blank people in the corridor and, in the middle of discussions, he would cut people off in mid-flow and move the meeting on. He would inform his staff of decisions that he’d made without consultation and seemed unsympathetic towards feedback.
There was no denying he got results but this seemed to be at the expense of staff morale.
What could be done?
We live in a blame culture but pointing fingers only makes matters worse. Tony understood that his subordinates were unhappy but was baffled as to why given that the department was so successful. His staff recognized and enjoyed the fact that their department was doing well but were resentful that Tony didn’t seem to appreciate their contribution towards that success.
In circumstances such as these the danger is that things can become personal. However, when we apply Michael Grinder’s Cats and Dogs analogy to the situation we can see that this is simply a clash of behavioural styles.
Tony’s behaviour at work is ‘high Cat’ – his focus is on productivity, he enjoys making decisions and becomes frustrated when discussions go off-topic. He does what needs to be done to achieve the targets and assumes that everyone else shares his motivation.
His staff on the other hand, being in Customer Services, are mostly ‘high Dog’. They are concerned about morale and rapport as well as achieving results. They enjoy gathering information and need to feel included.
The fact that Cats don’t do small talk and often fail to give sufficient acknowledgement to their Dogs is why Dogs consider the Cats are rude. When Dogs recognize the positive intentions of the Cats and understand that it’s just about behavioural style, it is easier for them to avoid taking things personally.
When the Cats understand that even a small amount of acknowledgement will go a very long way they will gain far greater support from their Dogs.
If you’d like to discover more about how an understanding of ‘Cat and Dog’ behavioural styles can help you in your professional and personal worlds, then a great place to start is Michael Grinder’s book, "Charisma – The Art of Relationships." It also makes a great Christmas gift! Click here for more information.
Until next time,
Graham Willson and Hazelann Lorkins
GLD Training Associates
gldassociates.co.uk
Video interview with Michael from NLP4Now
Excerpt of video interview of Michael Grinder from NLP4Now.
[MEDIA=12]
Professional Learning Community
By Dr. Kendall Zoller
(A Commentary on Michael Grinder’s model)

![]()
This slide is from a keynote I delivered at the California Mathematics and Science Partnership Fall Conference in Sacramento. The keynote, Forging Partnerships: Tools for building collaborative groups, proposed to link the works of DuFour, Garmston and Wellman, Grinder, and Zoller & Landry to show the macro and micro models of school improvement. Specifically, the talk illustrated how the Professional Learning Community is a structure, Adaptive Schools is the ecology of community, and 7 Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters is the behavioral foundation grounded in the Pentimento model by Grinder.
The Professional Learning Community model proposed by Richard Dufour offers a “what” and “why” explanation for schools to become learning communities. His powerful model explains what a Professional Learning Community is and why you need it. However, the PLC macro-model does little to define or explain “how” to behaviorally establish and maintain a Professional Learning Community. It is a “macro” model because it provides the structural elements of a Professional Learning Community; it does not include the specific and essential behavioral elements—the “micro” components–of a highly functional Professional Learning Community.
Enacting a PLC is where the Adaptive Schools macro-model proposed by Garmston and Wellman comes in. On a macro-scale, Adaptive Schools (“AS”) is a large component of “how” to support and maintain a Professional Learning Community. In their book The Adaptive Schools (2008), they provide the “what,” “why,” and “how” of the behavioral and structural elements embedded in its framework. The structural elements include Ways of Talking, Norms of Collaboration, Group Member Capabilities, effective meeting structures, and facilitation moves. The behavioral elements of AS include voice, pause, and gesture, however these elements are not as fully developed as the Grinder Pentimento micro-model or the 7 Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters micro-model proposed by Zoller and Landry.
For a Professional Learning Community to be successful, it is essential for the Community to be proficient in the tools and strategies of the Adaptive Schools. By embracing the elements of the Adaptive School model, the PLC will engage in true dialogues and ensure that all voices are heard.
Taking this one step further, to be fully adept at Adaptive Schools it is essential to be proficient in the Pentimento or the 7 Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters.
The nonverbal patterns of communication provide structures that support congruence, establish and maintain credibility and rapport, and provide ways of recognizing and influencing group dynamics and group permission. The Grinder model is a ”micro” model that provides the how on a discrete behavioral level. Within the Grinder micro model there are descriptions and explanations of “what” and “why.”
The following explanation illustrates the importance and essential requirement of knowing the Grinder model. Assume a group member intellectually understands Inquiry, Probing, Paraphrasing, Naïve Questions Pausing, and Advocacy. In addition, assume that the group member does not have conscious awareness of non-verbal patterns: when they speak, they speak independent of knowing the “permission level” (degree of receptivity) of the group. If the permission level is high, then the group is receptive and the speaker is okay. If permission is low, then the group is not receptive and the speaker may get into trouble. Knowing the Grinder micro-level offers an advantage to implementing the Garmston/Wellman model.
Linking these three models together generates at least two assumptions and one implication:
1. Assumption: Implementing Dufour’s Professional Learning Community independent of Garmston and Wellman’s Adaptive Schools will produce a less effective Professional Learning Community
2. Assumption: Implementing Garmston and Wellman independent of Grinder’s Pentimento or Zoller and Landry’s 7 Essential Abilities of Effective Presenters may be functional; however, they will have a limited proactive and reactive capability.
3. Implication: By being conscious of the nonverbal models, any member, including the person-in-charge, can be proactive within each of the other two models and thus more effective.
ENVoY-Your Personal Guide to Classroom Management with Rachel Babbs

Have more energy at the end of the day… Tired of the struggle in the classroom? Start building relationships to influence your classroom. No need to use power. Reach those hard-to-reach students with the ENVoY set of systemic nonverbal management skills.
Learn the ENVoY classroom management skills to:
- Understand poverty
- Reach the hard-to-reach student
- Managing different learning styles
- Inspire the uninspired student
- Develop your own personal charisma
ENVoY–Your Personal Guide to Classroom Management is on
Date:
Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008 from 8:30 to 3:30.
Location:
Pringle Elementary School
5500 Reed Ln. S.
Salem, Oregon
To Register: contact is Ann Martin at Ann.Martin@wesd.org, or call her at 503-588-5330
One graduate credit will be offered through Willamette University. The cost is $95 which includes the cost of the book.
Michael Grinder is the Master of Nonverbals…
“Reading” a person’s traits and finding out about his or her strengths and liabilities is one of his easier tasks. “Reading” a group and conducting ‘Group Wizardry’ through the Art and Science of Nonverbal Communication is his daily Masterpiece. His extraordinary work from teaching and observing thousands of classrooms to training and coaching large companies is the result of his incredible perception skills, his perfect timing – and most of all – his fine ability of “getting permission” – of forming relationships with people, young and old, poor and rich, “cats” as well as “dogs”.
“Charisma” is no longer an “inherited trait” but an expression of our well-practiced nonverbal communication skills.
Back in 1988 in the very first seminar Michael conducted in Germany, the first seminar I was allowed to attend and interpret for Michael, when I was still a student of psychology – it was one single nonverbal skill Michael whispered in my ear – this sentence, this skill, this single most important Nonverbal changed my whole life: the ability to “breathe”. For: “you can do anything and you can learn anything … as long as you can breathe…”
Through all the years that I was privileged to work as Michael’s “German voice”, his interpreter in his brilliant seminars, Michael’s way of “leading with influence instead of power” was a great model for me. Starting at the point where you “give yourself grace” and practise “recovery (which) is better than being perfect”, Michael’s approach is fundamentally practical and experiential:
Did you know that what you do with your hands while you breathe in or out makes a huge difference in your leadership abilities? Did you realize that leading yourself is a prerequisite to leading other people?
Michael’s professional expertise, his experience in life and applied research make him a person who has walked in many moccasins, thus discovering the “Pentimento”, the building blocks of Nonverbal Communication and creating learning experiences for his participants that change their behaviour yet also their beliefs about themselves and others. By teaching and applying “Micro” Grinder skills – he helps people reach their highest level of professionalism, to unfold their potential and become “liaisons”, people who help heal teams, groups, or nations. His consistency, his reliability and yet his flexibility in leading people to their own goals, his respectful way of attending to individuals’ and groups’ needs and values, his fostering of win-win relationships, is unprecedented.
Michael always walks what he talks. You can not read about him, you have to see and experience him. His admirable fairness and his extraordinary Negociation Skills are two main variables of his work in teaching and coaching individuals as well as groups. While his range of influence reaches from socially neglected teenagers in the poorest districts to the highest political leaders and ranks of Nations he creates a microcosm that helps people change and unfold their potential, teach, coach and lead others through influence not power and thus he creates a macrocosm that brings permission, positive win-win relationships, valued diversitiy, fairness and peace into this world.
With deepest respect and love for your work, life, and the love you give,
Gabi Dolke
Michael’s German interpreter and translator
Associate Nancy Burns in the news
TEACHERS LEARN NEW APPROACH TO DISCIPLINE
The Minneapolis School District is hoping to improve academic achievement by reducing the number of students who get sent out of the classroom or suspended because of their behavior. The district is encouraging teachers to learn techniques that will help them prevent disruptions and manage discipline within the classroom. The training is being offered as part of a new compensation system for teachers.