There will come times in any early-childhood teacher's classroom when all seems lost. Maybe it's one child who you cannot control. Maybe the entire classroom is spiraling into chaos. You feel like a failure.

This is when panic sets in and you start making bad decisions. It's hard to stay strategic when you just feel like running away, but there are still things you can do to make things better rather than worse without abandoning your core principles.

Greg Nelson has devoted most of the past half-century to early childhood education - first as a lead teacher; later as school owner, program director, curriculum designer, and workshop presenter; eventually as a college professor preparing preK-grade 2 public-school teachers; and finally by launching a birth-5 bachelor's degree program to help the private sector workforce attain professional skills as educators.

Dr. Nelson helped draft his state's early childhood learning standards; helped develop articulation agreements between his state's 2-year and 4-year early-childhood preparation programs; collaborated with public-school teachers to create State model curriculum units for early-childhood math and science, and authored two books on how to implement a world-class early childhood mathematics curriculum.

For many years, he served on the Steering Committee of his local NAEYC affiliate, was a member of the advisory to his state's Department of Early Education and Care, and led his state's higher ed. Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.

Greg is the father of three grown children. He currently resides with his wife in Raynham, Massachusetts.

Send all comments, criticisms, suggestions, or requests for print copies of collective volume of this work to gdnelson51@gmail.com.