Jane Bluestein

Whether students feel stressed or supported has a profound impact on their success, sense of belonging, and behavior. Designed as a guide for education professionals and parents, this book explores emotional safety, its effect on learning, and practical strategies for fostering well-being. Discover how to shape students' emotional responses by modeling healthy expression, building community, and nurturing self-awareness and self-management. K-12 administrators and teachers can use this book to: Foster emotional safety and belonging in schools Address how stress and anxiety impact the learning environment Address students' emotional needs and cultivate positive relationships in the classroom Strengthen classroom management with healthy approaches and practices Maintain authority while balancing structure with freedom Contents: Introduction Part I: Dimensions of a Very Big Picture Chapter 1: What Safety Is Chapter 2: The Heart of the Matter--Feelings and School Chapter 3: Safety--It's a Brain Thing Chapter 4: Learning and the Brain Chapter 5: Body and Mind Chapter 6: Where Children Are Coming From--Stress and Adaptation Chapter 7: Over the Edge--A World of Violence Chapter 8: Brave New World--The Changing Role of the School Chapter 9: All Are Welcome Here--The Need for Community Chapter 10: Snags in the Tapestry Chapter 11: More Welcome Than Others--Discrimination and Belonging Chapter 12: How Does Your Garden Grow? More Diversity, More Discrimination Part II: The Toolbox Chapter 13: Academic Safety--Learning and Success Chapter 14: Emotional Safety--Personal and Character Development Chapter 15: Social Safety--Belonging and Interpersonal Competence Chapter 16: Behavioral Safety--Discipline and Cooperation Chapter 17: Physical Safety--The Student Body Part III: The Grownups Chapter 18: Teacher Safety--Protecting the Protectors Chapter 19: The Collaborators--Parents and Community Epilogue: Are We Almost There Yet? Appendix References and Resources Index

Classroom management may be the hardest part of being a teacher: fraught with power struggles, it often leaves teachers feeling stressed and drained and students feeling mutinous or powerless. Most familiar classroom management practices reflect a dissonance between the rapid pace of change in our culture and the decades-old instruction and management techniques that still form the foundation of our educational system. According to award-winning author and classroom management expert Jane Bluestein, it's long past time for our strategies to catch up to the kids we're teaching. In Managing 21st Century Classrooms, she:Identifies seven of the most prevalent classroom management misconceptions. Discusses the tried-but-not-so-true practices that result from them. Offers positive, research-based alternatives that take into account how students learn today. This timely, practical publication, which is perfect for novice and veteran teachers alike, also includes a quick-reference chart contrasting ineffective, destructive approaches with effective, proactive strategies.

Traditional, teacher-centered classrooms are not serving the needs of our students. Their futures will increasingly demand skill sets in the areas of communication, collaboration, and critical thinking; worksheets, videos, and lectures will not prepare them for the challenges they will face in an increasingly-global economy. Shake-Up Call: The Need to Transform K-12 Classroom Methodology calls on educators at every level to challenge the status quo and take risks on behalf of kids. Ron Nash calls on teachers to move off the stage and become facilitators in a process where students are heavily engaged in their own learning. Teachers need to get kids up, moving, pairing, sharing, and asking questions as they seek to understand content-related information. This book reminds teachers of the importance of feedback in the continuous-improvement process, along with the role of consistency. In order to get students up, moving, and sharing, classrooms must be set up to allow for this movement; Nash includes an appendix full of pictures showing classroom configurations that facilitate movement and academic conversations. The final chapter calls for an end to isolation as teachers move to collaboration and the power of "We."