Rules and Consequences

Mine have always been extremely simple: Respect yourself, respect others, and respect property.

There’s virtually nothing a student can do that will meet anyone’s disapproval if the students understand and respect these rules. Without a lot of discussion at the beginning of the year, however, these rules are also pretty abstract to students who require more support, so I also challenge my students to come up with something they can do that would upset me, but not violate the rules. This leads to great class discussions at the beginning of class for the first week or two about what constitutes acceptable behavior. I’ve always considered this time well spent, because enforcement is so much easier for the rest of the year.

I’d undoubtedly have to modify my approach to be much more concrete if I were still working in the public school system, because my caseload would undoubtedly go well beyond the LD/ADD/mild EBD that I currently serve in a college-prep private school.
Karyn

I also have those three as the “big deal” - and I let the students concretize them and translate into “can’t call somebody stupid,” etc. I do try to keep things towards a positive slant so that we *are* acting respectfully, instead of focusing on all the things we’re not allowed to do. The main “not” was “is this keeping somebody from learnign - you or anybody else?”

Oh, but when I taught middle school, you weren’t allowed to say “I was just.” You’ll have to write it 25 times (or 5 if you have lousy motor skills). (Of course, it *was* an extension of the three big rules… if you had to make an excuse for what you were doing, you shouldn’t have been doing it, and besides, I’m not interested in a *description* of what you were doing, I’m interested in it stopping so we can learn more about what happened in the Roaring Twenties. If you would like to tell me more about it, I would be *glad* to entertain that discussion when the bell rings. )

Thanks, Sue! I have banned “I was just” for years and people have treated me as crazy over it, but I heard enough of that phrase in one year of teaching to last me a lifetime.