Class Calm

Greetings educators. Since this is my first blog post I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Edward Walters. I am a public charter high school teacher in Palm Beach County, Florida am in my eighteenth year as a classroom instructor. This blog is devoted to high school classroom management. Both at my school and other high schools I have visited, as well as meeting other high school teachers at professional development conferences, I have encountered many teachers that are lacking in this important area of teaching. My intention is to help them and in turn help their students. If you find the content useful, please spread the word. Thank you.

When I began teaching, however lacking I was in classroom management skills, I immediately realized that controlling the class was a cornerstone to success as a teacher. Right away I set out to not only improve but specialize in this phase of teaching. I would not let the goofballs, the disruptors, and the distractors run the show at the expense of the serious students who wanted to learn and succeed.

In my first year I definitely had my share of bad days in classroom management. However, by year three, although there was still room for improvement, I was no longer regarded as a doormat.

Soon, however, I switched jobs to a high school in an upper-income area and had to start all over again to learn to cope with that crowd (and their parents). This was followed by a brief stint as an eighth-grade teacher at a middle school where the principal took a hands-off approach to discipline (laissez-faire may work in economics but it will lead to an utter disaster in classroom management) which was followed by another brief stint at on-line school (not recommended unless you like the challenge of 150 students under your supervision). Finally, in the 2014-2015 school year I landed at the charter high school where I have been continuously up to the present.

Every year I have been adding to my game until this past year in which I completed the training to become a clinical educator. But why stop there? There are high school teachers all over the country who want to excel but simply do not know how to handle the countless situations that they confront daily with uncooperative, disruptive, lazy, troubled, tardy, and otherwise problematic students. The future of our country largely depends on having an educated body of citizens, workers, managers, entrepreneurs, etc. and that will not happen when students do not learn because the teacher cannot manage the class.

All are welcome to read this blog and post comments. Middle school and elementary school are perhaps even more important than high school. But specialization is key and this web page is devoted to high school teachers. This is not a site written by A.I. or a college ivory tower dweller or a former teacher sitting comfortably at home in pajamas sipping coffee in front of his Mac. This post is written by a real teacher who shows up for work Monday through Friday at a brick-and mortar school and deals with real students.

You are a busy professional and I respect your time so the posts will not be long. I greatly appreciate your readership. Please mark your thoughts in the comment section and come back later for the next post.