Calm is a choice. The key to a calm classroom isn't students who are obedient or quiet but students who feel empowered and safe. It starts with you as the teacher and your ability to foster an environment that supports emotional awareness, psychological safety and belonging, and connected relationships. In "Cultivating a Classroom of…

Teachers interacting with stressed and traumatized children are susceptible to secondary traumatic stress. Unlike college coursework in other social service disciplines, a dearth of literature on this topic informs teacher preparation programs. Prevention and intervention strategies for educators are suggested in this article.

We hold this truth to be self-evident: Students on the autism spectrum need support with life literacy before they can reach for content literacy. This article provides educators with an understanding of the interplay between life and content literacy in the classroom, as well as strategies to maximize success for these diverse learners. Students…

Often a young child's challenging behavior results from emotional flooding--being overwhelmed by one's emotions. The authors explain that in children, the "thinking brain," the cerebral cortex, is not fully developed, and children get emotionally overwhelmed more easily than adults because they process their experiences through the "emotional…

These facilitator's skill packets contain seven individual packets on skills for dealing with feelings: (1) knowing one's feelings; (2) expressing one's feelings; (3) understanding the feelings of others; (4) dealing with someone else's anger; (5) expressing affection; (6) dealing with fear; and (7) rewarding oneself. Each unit contains the…