My husband is preparing his classroom for the start of a new school year and told me that he doesn’t want to call his class rules “rules” anymore because it seems too negative. So instead, he is using the word “Expectations” and a list of four succinct rules: Be polite, Stay seated, Listen and Be Creative. This works for his music classroom because he has seen most of these kids each year.
There are three things I like about his new class rules:
- They are short and succinct. It is so easy to get caught up in making your rules positive that you might lose sight of a child’s attention span. Remain in your seat at all times is cumbersome for young children to read and extraneous for older children. Short and sweet: “stay seated” works much better.
- They are open to some interpretation. While this may seem counterproductive to some, having rules or “expectations” that are open to some interpretation can not only help students obey, but teach them about how to act in the real world as well. Be Polite can mean a variety of things on any given day –raise your hand instead of interrupting, scooting in your chair to prevent another child from tripping, helping a child pick up books or saying please and thank you.
- There is a rule to encourage creativity. Teachers fail if students pass tests but do not enjoy learning because once the tests are finished, so is learning. The ultimate job of a teacher, despite what the government would have us believe, is to create life-long learners through making learning fun. Creativity needs be in every classroom. Having this as a rule or expectation can help encourage children to problem-solve, work out squabbles, figure out a new way to learn something or find a way to entertain themselves quietly while the teacher helps another child.
As school is getting ready to start, take a gander at your class rules. Are they too wordy? Do you teach life skills through the class rules? Are you encouraging children to love learning?
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Hi Jennifer,
You’re right, it’s very easy to think you have to cover every possible classroom bahavior with a rule, which defeats the object of having an easy-to-understand framework that encourages learning rather than hinders it.
You can also introduce rules over a period of time – a couple of different rules each week.
And what seems to work best of all is when teachers take the time not only to model for the students the key skills they want students to display, but, crucially, teach and re-teach the rules frequently.
Better to have a small number of key rules that cover the most important principles and actively promote effective learning than have dozens that become far too difficult to manage.