"Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan To Speak At Yale Education Conference

Cesar Millan of “Dog Whisperer” fame will join several noted child development and education experts speaking at the Yale School of the 21st Century National Conference at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale July 19-21.

The leadership and staff developmental conference will include various workshops and plenary sessions on emotional intelligence, social and emotional learning, children and pets, health and education, and community collaborations. The conference is aimed at educators interested in Schools of the 21st Century (21C), Family Resource Centers (FRCs), education and health, social and emotional learning, and child-pet interactions, among other issues.

The 2010 21C National Conference will focus in part on Yale 21C’s Mutt-i-grees™ Curriculum, a PreK-Grade 3 curriculum that includes stories about Mutt-i-grees™ (shelter dogs) and incorporates a canine puppet to encourage empathy and teach children related social and emotional skills. Curricula for older age groups will follow this fall. The Curriculum was developed by Yale 21C in collaboration with the Pet Savers Foundation (the program development arm of North Shore Animal League America), with funding from the Millan Foundation.

Millan will present his address on Tuesday, July 20.

The 21C program transforms schools into multi-service centers offering guidance and support for parents; all-day, year-round preschool; before- and after school- and vacation care for school age children; health education and services; training for child care providers, and information and referral services for families.

The founder of the program is Edward Zigler, the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale. He also was one of the principal architects of the federal Head Start program. Zigler supports the growing trend toward providing universal pre-kindergarten in American school systems.

For more information, please visit http://www.yale.edu/21c/current_conference.html.