Topic: What are your classroom rules?

[wangsuda]

I recently ran a teacher training seminar at work, and one of the questions I posed was, "What are your classroom rules?" Just about every teacher present had a laundry list of stuff students could NOT do! No this, no that, no the other . . . no, No nO, NO! And my response was, "WTF? With all that you cannot do in your class, what can you do?" There was silence. I explained that having rules that contain the word "no," create two problems:
1. Students ALWAYS find a way around a "no" rule. IF you say "no gum in class," the students bring in candy. Amend the rule to "no gum and candy" and students bring in food. The cycle continues until the rule includes every known food type in the world.
2. There are so many "no's" in your rules that the students just give up. After all, the teacher allows nothing in class, so why should the students do anything?
So, what do to do with rules? Simple - make them positive.  I use four, language-positive rules that (so far, thank Buddha) have covered most classroom situations. I would like to share them, and perhaps we can get some discussion on them, share various rules, and maybe come up with a difinitive classroom rules list.

My Rules:
1. Be Respectful - many teachers have rules stating "no talking back," "no gum chewing," "no writing on desks.”  Cannot all this negativity be summed up in one positive statement?  Yes, it can, and that is what "be respectful" means.  It also means more than just no talking, chewing, and destruction.  It is a method of treating other students as well.  If a student is respectful to his/her teacher, his/her fellow students, and the school's property, than you have a well-behaved student whose life is not governed by a list of "no's."
2.  Be Informed — when a student walks into my class he/she needs to be ready for anything.  Being informed is more than having homework completed; it includes reading (assigned material as well as outside material), classroom awareness (what are we doing, and where are we in the grand scheme of things), and news awareness (being aware of school, local, state, and national events).  Being informed helps in literature interpretation, since many texts relate their stories to events that happened in Thailand or world history.
3.       Be Prepared— like the Boy Scouts, a student should be prepared when s/he walks into my class.  This preparedness is more than just having a pencil and some paper (although that is nice); it includes being ready for a changing classroom dynamic.  Some days may include acting out scenes from the currently studied literature, working on group projects, demonstrating a knowledge base and understanding of material on assessment day, and/or anything my educationally directed mind thinks of.  Being prepared for class allows a student to better prepare him/herself for the world. 
4.   Participate — a student can be as respectful, informed, and prepared as s/he can, and I will never know it unless the student opens his/her mouth in class.  My classes are loud, for much learning and understanding comes through interaction between the students and me.  One method of assessment I use is how a student responds, orally, to questions I pose to the class.  Participation also includes reenactment of literature, drawing, reading aloud, sharing ideas, debate of topics and concepts, and anything else I can think of which brings learning and understanding more accessible to the student.

[meanmachine]

The rules I apply in my class follow the rules of the institute. There's a general no texting / SMS policy and no language other than English. Apart from that its less about the No's and more the way you teach your material. Loud voice [not shouting], keeping the materials varied and interesting and keeping things focused on the areas the group is interested in. Eating in class and turning up either late or unprepared is something that the learners can lose overall "marks" for and hence may not get a certificate when the course comes to an end.

Mobiles are a persistent pain but if you let them off once they'll spend all day sending each other porn or texts saying how much they'd like to see you on the end of a rope.

[math_teacher]

I like your rules, wangsuda. I completely agree with you that rules should be phrased as positive statements. Also it is important to keep the rules to as few as possible. I have be trained to have 5 or fewer. Here are my rules that I use.
1) Always be respectful and compassionate to yourself and others.
2) Come to class on time fully prepared to work hard.
3) Correctly follow the instructions of the teacher the first time they are given.

I like you rule on participation. I may come up with a version of that to add to mine.
The regardless of exactly what the rules are it is important, in my opinion, to get the students engaged with the rules so that they have a clear understanding of what they mean in practice. I do this by having an activity at the beginning of the school year where I hand out a worksheet. Each student takes 5-10 minutes (I use a timer) to write down examples of what each rule means and doesn't mean. Then I have them discuss in small groups for about 5 minutes (again I use a timer) to share their examples with each other. Then I discuss the rules and the examples the students came up with and put them on an overhead projector or white board. Finally I give each small group a sheet of poster paper or butcher paper and have them create a poster using both words and pictures (I let them use colored markers to get them creative) to describe what rule #1 means to them. I then take these creations, cut out the work they did and put them all together on a large piece of poster paper and hang up in the room almost like a collage. I keep it up all year round. Any time a student breaks the rule I can warn them that they a breaking the rule and always refer to the creation that they participated in making. I find it works wonders. Of course any rule is only effective if it is consisntently enforced. I know Thai kids are notorious at trying to get away with just about anything. But so are some American kids so I am used to it. I always emphasize that it is their choice to break the rule and thus it is their choice to receive the consequence of their actions.
My two satang. 

[math_teacher]

meanmachine,
You are right that rules are often broken because the students are being engaged enough in class and well prepared lessons with a variety of activities with smooth and efficient transitions will keep students on task. The bored student is the student more likely to misbehave.

[Lindsay]

There's a general no texting / SMS policy and no language other than English. Mobiles are a persistent pain but if you let them off once they'll spend all day sending each other porn or texts saying how much they'd like to see you on the end of a rope.

That's soooo funny! I work in a private high school in Japan and the phones are collected every morning by the homeroom teachers, therefore, mobiles phones are no problem to me at all.

As for classroom rules - no food or drink and no punching the little trouts for not paying attention

[Lindsay]

You are right that rules are often broken because the students are being engaged enough in class and well prepared lessons with a variety of activities with smooth and efficient transitions will keep students on task. The bored student is the student more likely to misbehave.

Hey Math_teacher,
Where is this parallel universe you teach in or did you read that in a textbook somewhere? Every class is different, every student is different, so to generalize and to put the inattentiveness or misbehavior of students and the success of a lesson onto the teacher's lesson plan seems to be a very naive statement. With a small group of students in a conversation school it is possible to keep their attention and focus, however, in a class of 36-40 teenagers learning a foreign language it is impossible to get 100% attention regardless of how good you think your lesson plan is. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink!"

However, if you post was meant to be sarcastic, it is the funniest post I have read recently.

[edo]

Ever heard the saying, ''rules are made to be broken''?
Why do educators feel the need to implement rules in order to do their jobs correctly?
Students, ie, people, are different and should be handled differently (even in large groups).
Being a good teacher - other than knowing your subject well & knowing how to present it - involves inspiring the students to become better students and better people. This is done by removing restrictions and granting freedom from where you can guide them. Giving limitations is limiting overall.

Just my 2 cents - cada quien su vida.