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Martial arts instructor Johanna Williams climbed onto the bleachers in the gym at Thurgood Marshall Middle School and turned to face several dozen sixth- and seventh-grade girls lined up on the floor in front of her.

"Jab!" she shouted.

In unison, the girls punched the air with their right fists and then their left. Williams nodded and moved on to the next exercise: how the girls could also use elbows and knees to fend off an assailant.

Williams' self-defense workshop was one of more than a dozen held Friday for the Temple Hills school's first Women Make a Difference Day.

Nearly 400 girls, in grades six through eight, learned about relationships, success in the workplace and how to build confidence. The event was a follow-up to last month's Men Make a Difference Day — celebrated for the second year in a row at Prince George's County public schools — but Thurgood Marshall is one of only a handful of schools to put on a similar program for girls.

School parent liaison Sabrina Vann, who organized both events, said the workshops on Friday were designed to empower young women and introduce them to skills they may not already know, such as dining etiquette or relaxation techniques.

"With boys, we focus our program about making the right choices regarding the law," Vann said. "For girls, it's respect ... for them to have self-worth."

Student Government President Dillan Suttle, 13, an eighth-grader from Temple Hills, said she and female classmates are facing pressures once reserved for older students in high school.

"They're trying to finish school and stay away from drugs and sex," she said of her female peers. "They're just trying to ... find who they are."

Dillan said the woman she most looks up to is her mother, Danielle Richardson, who also attended the workshop. Richardson said she thinks parents need to do a better job of teaching girls early on about healthy relationships and how to build their self-confidence.

"I've been trying to teach her to respect herself and her body," Richardson said. "I'm a single mom, but her dad is very involved, and I think that makes a difference."

Aisha Barnes, a school administrator, said educators are also increasingly competing with technology — from cell phones to e-mail — for girls' attention.

"They are not talking about academics" when they text message, she said. She added that she hoped interactions with professional women would encourage girls to focus on their studies.

Eighth-grader Omari Reed, 14, of Oxon Hill said she enjoyed listening to other girls talk about how they resolve conflicts with their friends.

"It helps me to see I'm not the only one," she said.

In addition to the workshops, the young women heard from several speakers, including a keynote address from Lonise Bias, who spoke about overcoming the emotional challenges she faced after the deaths of two of her sons, Len and Jay Bias.

Len Bias, a former basketball star at the University of Maryland, died in 1986 of a drug overdose, and Jay Bias was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1990.

"The first love you have to have is love for yourself," Bias told the girls.