BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Valarie Jenkins loves teaching, whether it involves the elementary aged children who inhabit her classroom at Argyle Elementary School in Orange Park or the adults who are her professional peers.
Jenkins, a Lawtey native, has written a book entitled “Classroom Management 101” that she hopes will serve as a successful model for teachers to follow. As she wrote on the back of the book’s cover, “As an educator of over 33 years, I learned the hard way to how to manage my classroom. Through years of trial and error, research and tryouts, I have compiled the best and most effective methods of classroom management.”
For years, it wasn’t just her students who were asking her questions, Jenkins said. Fellow teachers would ask her what her secret was. Why are your students so calm in the classroom? Why are they so calm in the hallways? Why are they calm in line?
“I would share different little things with them regarding whatever they asked me,” Jenkins said, adding, “I would write little things down that I used and my strategies and techniques. One day, I said, ‘I’m going to put all these — all my little notes — together in a book.’ I just really wanted those teachers to see it not as hard as the think.”
The result was an 80-page book that’s available for purchase on Amazon or by contacting Jenkins by email at [email protected] for a personally signed copy. Jenkins said she wanted to keep the page count low and write “in simple terms and make it an easy read.”
Jenkins also has a notebook for sale that teachers can use to supplement the “Classroom Management 101” book.
“They can make notes in the notebook and follow those steps (in the book),” Jenkins said. “They will be able to see a difference in their classrooms as well as with their classroom-management skills.”
Jenkins hopes the book will encourage her peers, noting that “many teachers are leaving the educational field due to the stress and demands on those who teach.”
The book is an extension of her Classroom Management 101 business, which makes her available for seminars and coaching sessions. She’s comfortable with such activities, explaining that she’s a clinical education trainer and served as a teacher mentor when she worked at Oakleaf Village Elementary School.
“It’s very gratifying,” Jenkins said of helping other teachers.
If there’s one thing above all that she’d like to get across in her book and through her training sessions, it’s that teachers need to have a life outside of the job — to be able to take the time to breathe and to relax. In fact, Jenkins sells items such as tumblers, candles and beach towels that bear the words “breathe” and “relax” on them — a reminder to teachers to take a break and enjoy life.
“Don’t stay (at school) until 6 or 7 every day. Enjoy life,” Jenkins said, adding, “They need to know how to put aside some things for family time.”
One of the things that has helped Jenkins relax over the years has been journaling. She said she finds that writing the good things that happen to her each day and of the goodness of God is “peaceful and calming.”
That’s why at the same time she wrote her “Classroom Management 101” book, she also created a journal, which is also available for purchase via Amazon: “The Goodness of God.” Jenkins said the journal pages bear scriptures that are important to her and have helped her through trials.
Jenkins has kept every personal journal she’s filled.
“If something comes up again in my life that’s similar to something that’s happened in the past, I go back and see what the Lord did for me then and the scriptures He gave to me then,” Jenkins said. “It helps me.”
Jenkins, the daughter of the deceased Wilbert and Jessie Jenkins, had several members in her family who worked in education, including her mother, who taught with Head Start and then substitute taught in Bradford County schools for many years. She was inspired to go into education herself when she saw the positive affect it had on those family members.
“It looked as if it was fun for them,” Jenkins said. “It was so rewarding for my mom. I just wanted to follow in those footsteps.”
Jenkins’ teaching career began in Bradford County in 1989. Over the course of 18 years, she taught pre-K and kindergarten at Lawtey, Starke and Southside elementary schools as well as at the RJE Center. She moved to the Clay County School District in 2007 to teach at Oakleaf Village Elementary, where she earned Teacher of the Year during one of her 14 years there.
The joy of teaching for Jenkins is being able to observe how students improve — academically, behaviorally and emotionally.
“Just to see that progress throughout the year is so rewarding to me,” she said.
Jenkins is working toward having a more widespread impact. She’s earned a master’s degree in Educational Leadership and recently completed a Clay County program for aspiring assistant principals.
Of the prospect of leaving the classroom to become an administrator, Jenkins said, “It’s exciting because I will reach more students. I will reach an entire school.
She wants to continue to reach teachers as well and plans to write a follow-up book, “Classroom Management 102.”
Jenkins, who participated in a book-signing event on March 4 at Orange Park’s Winterbourne Inn on the St. Johns River, said she’ll be participating in a Meet the Authors event at the Bradford County Public Library on Aug. 4 at 2 p.m. She said she is also working on getting a signing event together in early summer at the Woman’s Club of Starke.
She’s looking forward to such opportunities in Bradford County, saying, “I know so many teachers here because I taught here for so many years. I want to offer this book to them as well.”
