NIS International Research-to-Practice Conference

Inspirational Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Gordon Neufeld

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a Canadian developmental psychologist with over 45 years of experience with children and youth and those responsible for them.

A foremost authority on child development, Dr. Neufeld is an international speaker, a bestselling author (Hold On To Your Kids) and a leading interpreter of the developmental paradigm. Dr. Neufeld has a widespread reputation for making sense of complex problems and for opening doors for change. While formerly involved in university teaching and private practice, he now devotes his time to teaching and training others, including educators and helping professionals. His Neufeld Institute is now a world-wide charitable organization devoted to applying developmental science to the task of raising children. Dr. Neufeld appears regularly on radio and television. He is a father of five and a grandfather to six.

IX NIS International Research-to-Practice Conference, 26-27 October 2017: Keynote Speech

The Keys to Well-Being in Students (Plenary Session Speech)

What enables some students to benefit more from their schooling than others, despite equal intelligence and opportunity? Why is it that less and less of our teaching is translating into student learning, despite significant advances in curricula, pedagogy and technology? Why are so many of our successful students succumbing to the ravages of stress? And why are our children getting meaner to each other? Dr. Neufeld will address these issues with fresh insights from the relatively new sciences of emotion, play and relationship. He will highlight the roles of development, attachment and emotion, in the learning equation specifically and in the unfolding of human potential in general. In making sense of what is happening in today’s society, he will also point to way through. There is much we can do to realize the learning potential and emotional well-being of our students, but we cannot effectively address a problem we do not fully understand.