Calm, Alert and Learning

Book excerpt: Recent research tells us that one of the keys to student success is self-regulation - the ability to monitor and modify emotions, to focus or shift attention, to control impulses, to tolerate frustration or delay gratification. But can a child's ability to self-regulate be improved? Canada's leading expert on self-regulation, Dr. Stuart Shanker, knows it can and that, as educators, we have an important role to play in helping students' develop this crucial ability. Distinguished Research Professor at York University and Past President of the Council for Early Child Development, Dr. Shanker leads us through an exploration of the five major domains--what they are, how they work, what they look like in the classroom, and what we can do to help students strengthen in that domain.