Welcome to the Learning Center

We are excited to welcome Rachel Young, LMFT as our Keynote Speaker at the 2024 Teachers on Teaching Conference. Rachel is a Marriage & Family Therapist and a Mendocino College Dance Instructor. She enjoys working with preteens, teens, and adults. She has specialized experience working with juvenile offenders, particularly youth who have been incarcerated. In addition, Rachel has a special interest in helping members of the Native community address issues that sometimes stem from historical trauma, including family and domestic violence, addiction, and poverty. As this year's keynote speaker, Rachel will share her journey from overcoming adversities to celebrating the teachers who helped her along the way. Her talk will include a rich perspective on who we are as teachers and how to support students in these post-pandemic times.

Rachel Young, LMFT BIO
Rachel Young, LMFT, has been utilizing movement and the body as a vehicle for healing her childhood trauma and mental health for the past 20 years. Rachel has a Master's in Counseling and a Bachelor's in Dance from Sonoma State University. She is a first-generation college student, and had to overcome barriers such as poverty, violence, addiction, foster care, and other trauma in her healing journey. She is also in her 30th year of recovery from addiction. Rachel has been learning about her own Indigenous roots over the last 8 years, and this has deepened her spiritual connection and informed her somatic work in teaching and in all her relations. She believes that each of us has the innate power to heal, first ourselves, then our families, and our community at large.

Trauma Responsiveness and Students with Developmental Disabilities
Children with disabilities are disproportionately exposed to adverse life experiences and are at greater risk for psychiatric conditions such as PTSD. This presentation will highlight considerations for students with developmental disabilities impacted by trauma and how best practices in special education align with trauma-responsive approaches. The target audience is PK-12 teachers.

Elizabeth McAdams Ducy BIO 
Elizabeth McAdams Ducy is an associate professor of special education at Sonoma State University. Her research interests include individuals with disabilities impacted by loss, grief, and trauma, with specific interests in the disproportionate impact of disasters on students with disabilities and trauma-responsive school-based approaches. Her most recent publications report on how the 2017 Northern California wildfires impacted children with developmental disabilities and their families. Dr. Ducy is a former special education teacher at a Title One school in Texas.

Creating a More Ethical, Equitable, and Culturally Responsive Classroom
In this workshop, participants will engage in various activities to learn to recognize their own bias and understand how it informs their actions. Participants will learn where to get information, and how to research the communities, schools, and students they work with to better understand how to serve them in a meaningful way. Lisa will share valuable information about how to teach in a more equitable and ethical way that serves not only the teacher, but also the students.  Lisa is a former K-12 Teacher, Dean of Students, and Education Director for Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.  She is studying Organizational Leadership at the University of San Francisco and learning various methods of qualitative and quantitative research, culturally responsive pedagogy, equity, and ethical practices which will be demonstrated in this workshop.

Lisa Furlong BIO
Lisa Furlong was born and raised in Southern California and moved to Mendocino County in 2016. She is the mother of 2 young children. She is a graduate of CSUF, Multiple Subject Credential, LMU MBA, and currently a student in the USF, Education Department with the objective of earning her EdD. in Organizational Leadership. She is currently a Professor of Business at Mendocino College. Prior to her professorial role, she was a Dean at Upper Lake Elementary School and Educational Director at Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, and Boys and Girls Club. She was also an instructor at Yokayo Elementary School (Grade 5), Potter Valley (Kindergarten) and has substituted in multiple districts.

Centering the Voices of Marginalized Students
This interactive workshop will focus on the effects of power and privilege on the academic success of our students. We will discuss ways to "center" the voices of students who've been disadvantaged/harmed by the unjust distribution of power and privilege. And we will discuss ways for those with relatively more privilege to use their advantage to ally themselves with and advocate for those with relatively less privileged identities.

Charlie Seltzer BIO
Aside from being a part-time faculty member in Mendocino College’s Theater Department, Charlie is a consultant with the Center for Applied Research Solutions where he provides training and technical assistance to the state’s Department of Health Care Services and to counties across the state in creating a just and equitable behavioral health care system.

Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom
Thirty-one percent of children in Mendocino County experience two or more Adverse Childhood Experiences. Additionally, the last several years of wildfires and COVID-19 have had huge impacts on the entire community. The result is often unwanted behaviors or attitudes in our classrooms that hinder students' ability to learn. In this session, we will explore ways to create a trauma-informed classroom and address compassion resilience.

Ginny Buccelli BIO
Ginny Buccelli, MFA, is a full-time English faculty member at Mendocino College. At present, she is deeply entrenched in a sabbatical project to explore ways to support student resilience and is in the process of earning a certificate as a Trauma Informed Specialist through CSU East Bay.

The 3 R's of Addressing Behavioral Health Symptoms in Students
The 3 R's of Addressing Behavioral Health Symptoms in Students: Recognizing,  Responding, Referring: Teachers have always been asked to do more than simply provide education on the 3 R's of Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. Sociological factors have raised the frequency and degree of crisis-related emotional and behavioral health symptoms among students, including diagnosed mental illness and substance use disorders. Let's talk about that.

Helen Falandes BIO
Helen Falandes M.Ed. has been working in behavioral health services as a provider and trainer since 1979. She has concurrently taught at Mendocino College’s Human Services & SUD Counseling programs since 2000. She holds a B.S. in Rehabilitation Counseling / Special Education and an M.Ed. in Counselor Education.

Using Mindfulness to Humanize Learning
In this session, we will delve into the untapped potential of mindfulness to enhance learning capacity, eliminate biases within learning communities, and promote a more human and connected classroom environment. Participants will walk away with a curated set of resources, tools, and ideas to continue their journey into mindfulness in education that feels authentic to the individual teacher.

Melissa Nole BIO
Melissa Nole serves as a Child Development college instructor at Mendocino College, bringing experience as an elementary school teacher, instructional coach, and mentor. With a background in education, Melissa deeply understands the emotional demands of the profession. Her journey as an educator has equipped her with insights into the challenges and barriers that students and teachers face in the classroom. In addition to her background in child development and education, Melissa holds certification as a yoga instructor. Both personally and professionally, she has committed herself to integrating mindfulness practices into the learning environment.

Youth Adult Partnership in Schools
This workshop will begin with a panel of students from Big Picture Ukiah at South Valley who will share their stories of transformation into wellness. They will show how their journeys were impacted by the structures of youth-adult partnerships in their school. They will illuminate themes and provide examples that could inform an approach to school design, classroom structure, curriculum, and the way we view the relationship between youth and adults in education. After the panel, they will lead an interactive activity for participants to self-assess and make a plan to improve their practice of authentically partnering with their students.

Kita Grinberg, Isaiah Vargas, and Dakota Hill - BIOs
Isaiah Vargas, a senior at BPU is a martial arts practitioner, motivational speaker, and emerging personal trainer. Dakota Hill, a senior at BPU, is a future social worker. Kita Grinberg, now principal of Big Picture Ukiah at South Valley, has been a classroom teacher in alternative settings for 18 years.

Please Don’t Say You’ll “Hold Space” for Me
Please Don't Say You'll "Hold Space" for Me: An LGBTQIA+ Safe Zone Conversation - Being inclusive at work and in the classroom is wonderful, but sometimes it can do the opposite to your target audience. Join me for an "Impact of Silence" activity, Queer Herstory, and syllabus takeaways. This conversation will help shed light on the queer experience in academia and help with constructing new ways to help queer colleagues and students feel safe enough to be themselves.

Salvatore Russo (Tory) BIO
Hello, my name is Salvatore Russo, but you can call me Tory. I have an MA in Rhetoric and Composition, and my major academic focus is public pedagogy and the way it impacts society. This is my second year at Mendocino College. I look forward to meeting you all!

RESTORE
Using somatic awareness and breathing we will learn skills for reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, increasing physical and mental well-being, and down regulating the nervous system. This will naturally increase our connections with each other and begin to reduce mental health barriers to learning, strengthening our ability to be present for our students during this post-pandemic period. Come away with simple, quick grounding exercises which can be done with any student in any setting. Treat yourself to a practice in which you will leave feeling more relaxed and rejuvenated than ever.

Rachel Young, LMFT BIO
Rachel Young, LMFT, has been utilizing movement and the body as a vehicle for healing her childhood trauma and mental health for the past 20 years. Rachel has a Master's in Counseling and a Bachelor's in Dance from Sonoma State University. She is a first-generation college student, and had to overcome barriers such as poverty, violence, addiction, foster care, and other trauma in her healing journey. She is also in her 30th year of recovery from addiction. Rachel has been learning about her own Indigenous roots over the last 8 years, and this has deepened her spiritual connection and informed her somatic work in teaching and in all her relations. She believes that each of us has the innate power to heal, first ourselves, then our families, and our community at large.