"I've seen a lot of changes in my class with kids coming in with anxiety and different forms of stress at very young levels," said Jane Wilson, an elementary school teacher from Moncton, New Brunswick. "I want to have a deeper understanding of self-regulation, bring it into my class and my school, and have people understand more about it."

This is just one of the many comments coming out of an address by renowned expert, Dr. Stuart Shanker, who kicked off the first annual Self-Regulation Summer Symposium on July 13, 2015 at Trent's Peter Gzowski College. The symposium, which runs until July 17, has attracted 120 delegates from around the world who want to implement self-regulation initiatives into their organizations.

"The purpose of the symposium is to start moving self-regulation and its application to education and behavioural work from a basic level up to the next level of implementation," said Dr. Brenda Smith-Chant, professor of psychology at Trent University, who co-organized the global conference.

A wide cross-section of professionals interested in childhood education are attending the symposium, including educators, government officials, policy-makers, health care practitioners, and researchers. The five-day schedule features presentations from Canadian and international experts in the field of self-regulation.

Dr. Shanker's presentation, entitled Paradigm Revolution, outlined a new way of looking at education that is driven by advances in the understanding of the impact of excessive stress on students and teachers. He described self-regulation as a process of trial and error in which the most important scientists in the collaborative effort are the teachers.

Delegates observed that Trent provides the perfect backdrop for the symposium, offering relaxing self-regulation activities such as canoeing, walking, biking and yoga.

"Trent is quite a nice choice given the topics of the symposium," said Benjamin Lira who travelled from Peru to learn more about self -regulation. "There are a lot of links between self-regulation and being with nature in a calm space and this venue offers that. It is very consistent with what this symposium is about."

Ms. Wilson, who started her day with a walk along the river, agreed. "It's beautiful here with a very calming atmosphere."

"Trent embodies Dr. Shanker's philosophy," added Dr. Smith-Chant. "We're interdisciplinary, we're embedded in nature and we have a community-based focus. The delegates are loving the location, so we would really like to hold future symposiums as an annual event."

Posted on Wednesday, July 15, 2015.