GETCA 2025

Let’s face it, education system is a complex mine field at times. Within that complexity educators are seeing an increase in individual case complexity too. My view is that if we do not look after our educators, we cannot look after our children. Educators are being expected to manage more and more complex behaviour. As well as tooling teachers up with recourses and training to understand how to manage that, we must support teachers in how to become masters of themselves in that complexity and challenge. When we become a master of the controllable variables, everything changes and that is what I want to remind us all of today.

How do you spark a person’s curiosity? Whether you’re engaging a client, a colleague, or a trainee, that first step of getting them to “lean in” can be the ticket for meaningful engagement. In this captivating and humorous talk, Dan Riskin breathes life into the subject of curiosity through storytelling, while sharing his personal journey from insecure science student to Discovery Channel TV host. Initially plagued by imposter syndrome and fear, Riskin quit academics for a time, giving up on his dreams and working instead as a waiter. But something pulled him back, and while doing his PhD on vampire bats, Riskin was bitten — yes, by a few bats but also by a fundamental fact about curiosity that transformed his life. From that moment on, Riskin was unstoppable, publishing his research in top journals, appearing as a science expert on Jay Leno and Craig Ferguson’s late night talk shows, then ultimately taking the helm as the host of his own TV shows on Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel. What’s the secret? It's the profound understanding that people engage best with content when they are emotionally connected to it. (Riskin knows this from experience, but also because he can point to the scientific papers that explain why it happens.) That realization transformed his career trajectory and empowered him to achieve remarkable success. And since Riskin’s talk is carefully crafted to stoke the emotions of your audience, his message has the power to change them, too. That emotional engagement is why Riskin’s talk will be unforgettable for your group, and why it can permanently alter their perspective on their own professional paths.

Teaching as Curriculum Leaders: Creating Classrooms that Reflect Our Values Schools are the places we grow our future. People become educators because they hope to nourish young people who are ready to engage the world through democratic practices, creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and a commitment to justice. Now matter what the content, educators hope to create classrooms centered on the fullness of the human beings within those classrooms. Yet, we are in a moment when significant external forces are attempting to narrow classroom curriculum and inhibit the full expression of educator professional knowledge, expertise and values. It is critical that educators not be alone in the defense of their pedagogy. What can we learn from the collective action of educators across the US and Canada about how to preserve education as a space to develop young people’s capacity to engage in democratic society and access the breadth of their human potential? In this talk, we will explore examples and reflect on lessons learned.

Often the focus is placed on how we can “fix” Black male students rather than how we can equip schools and teachers to better meet the educational needs of Black males. Rather than providing teachers with broad, complex, ideological approaches for addressing the needs of Black male students, this presentation offers teachers with salient, visceral, and first hand details regarding young black males’ schooling experiences in which teachers can immediately reflect upon and use in their teaching pedagogy.