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Cultivating a Classroom of Calm: How to Promote Student Engagement and Self-Regulation
Transform your chaotic classroom environment into a classroom of calm by fostering community, trust, and self-reflection.
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 Calm, mindfulness coach and former principal Meredith McNerney will help you promote student engagement and self-regulation using strategies grounded in neuroscience research. The book provides all the tools you need to
• Discern the characteristics of a truly calm environment.
• Explore the four dimensions of engagement.
• Discover how trauma often affects students.
• Balance empathy with accountability in the classroom.
• Develop practices to regulate emotions and stress.
As you explore how the brain can learn to make calm and responsible decisions, the book will guide you in building a personalized plan to cultivate calm for your students and yourself.
When you understand your own basic emotional and relational needs, you can instill your own calmness and help your students learn how to do the same, cultivating a classroom environment in which every learner can grow.
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 Calm, mindfulness coach and former principal Meredith McNerney will help you promote student engagement and self-regulation using strategies grounded in neuroscience research. The book provides all the tools you need to
• Discern the characteristics of a truly calm environment.
• Explore the four dimensions of engagement.
• Discover how trauma often affects students.
• Balance empathy with accountability in the classroom.
• Develop practices to regulate emotions and stress.
As you explore how the brain can learn to make calm and responsible decisions, the book will guide you in building a personalized plan to cultivate calm for your students and yourself.
When you understand your own basic emotional and relational needs, you can instill your own calmness and help your students learn how to do the same, cultivating a classroom environment in which every learner can grow.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 25, 2024
13 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 7, 2024
So…responsive classroom? (with a sprinkle of PBIS?)
This reads like a 15 page grad school paper that was stretched into a short book. It was so repetitive and the writing style was not engaging. I would be concerned if teachers who follow up with simple Edutopia articles or PD in their schools don’t already know everything presented here. To be honest, most is common sense and just best practice.
However, my favorite part was when she gaslights teachers, saying, if you don’t like how admin handles behavioral situations you should just move schools. Sure.
This reads like a 15 page grad school paper that was stretched into a short book. It was so repetitive and the writing style was not engaging. I would be concerned if teachers who follow up with simple Edutopia articles or PD in their schools don’t already know everything presented here. To be honest, most is common sense and just best practice.
However, my favorite part was when she gaslights teachers, saying, if you don’t like how admin handles behavioral situations you should just move schools. Sure.
July 16, 2025
Admin assigned me to read this as a possible book study book. Seems like a summary of most of what I have been taught throughout my entire career and all topics I felt I could confidently lead a PD on prior to reading the book. Too much breadth, not enough depth and definitely felt like as an experienced educator I am not the target audience here.
May 15, 2024
Lowkey based - very helpful as a tool for walking teachers through the research that’s already out there.
Hard to read this book without thinking of 10 people who really need to read it.
Hard to read this book without thinking of 10 people who really need to read it.
May 28, 2024
Great starting place for educators looking to refresh their classroom management skills.
August 12, 2024
Professional development reading assignment. Good reminders, a few new strategies.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews