Explore how to involve students in creating classroom rules and standards for appropriate behavior. Consider how to help students regulate their own behavior.

Creating Classroom Rules and Behavior Standards

 Years ago, long before I had my own children, I thought one of my jobs in education was to get every one of my students to mind me. I found that you can't make any child do what he doesn't want to do.

—Barbara Coloroso, in an excerpt from Flexible Classroom Management Styles and the Student-Learning Connection, an ASCD audio program.

Classroom management has many facets, including classroom organization, scheduling, handling discipline issues, and managing the dynamic relationship between you and your students. It is often cited by teachers as their number-one challenge.

It's not hard to imagine why: a teacher must help a group of 15 to 30 learners achieve standard learning goals. However, students are anything but standard. Their home lives range from secure to unstable, they bring different personalities and attitudes toward school into the classroom, and they each learn in different ways and at varied paces. If teachers think that effectively managing such a group — or any group, for that matter — will come naturally, they may be in for a surprise.

In Lesson 1, you explored ways to build relationships with your students. In this lesson, we'll consider discipline. It may be comforting to know that educators can learn strategies that will help them be effective in establishing an environment of order and discipline that is conducive to learning.

Establishing Rules and Procedures

Learning begins with structure and discipline, says Mark Boynton, an ASCD author and education consultant (Boynton & Boynton, 2005). Contrary to popular belief, discipline is not punishment; it's teaching. This assertion is supported by the classical meaning of the word:

c.1225, from O.Fr. descepline, from L. disciplina "instruction given to a disciple," from discipulus (see disciple). Sense is from "order necessary for instruction."

—The Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=discipline

The "order necessary for instruction" may be hard to achieve if students are unclear about the expectations teachers have of them. It's important that teachers spell out their expectations.

"Unfortunately, many teachers make the mistake of announcing rather than teaching parameters to their students," write Mark Boynton and Christine Boynton, in The Educator's Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems (2005). "The truth is that students do not learn what's announced; they learn what they are taught. It makes no more sense to announce rules regarding acceptable student behaviors than it does to announce — rather than teach — math facts," the authors state (2005, p. 23).

You have to teach all of your procedures so that they will eventually become routines to the students.

—Malinda Paige, in an excerpt from How to Design Classroom Management to Enhance Learning, an ASCD video-based professional development program.

Remember that you may have to reteach rules and procedures, write Boynton and Boynton. Students may also need to practice some procedures "until it is clear they grasp them," the authors state (2005, p. 32).

Along with teaching, modeling, and reteaching, it's wise to involve students in creating classroom rules and procedures. When students help set the guidelines, they'll be more motivated to adhere to them.

Donna Bleau gets buy-in from her students by involving them in writing a class promise.

—An excerpt from Classroom Management that Works, Tape 1: Sharing Rules and Procedures, an ASCD video-based professional development program.

Luckily, there are many such examples of ways to involve students in creating standard classroom operating rules and procedures that are both teacher- and student-approved.

 Partners in the Process, Part 1

Emphasizing Self-Management

Once teachers and students have worked together to determine the procedures they want to follow in their classroom, a logical next step is for students to take ownership of the classroom environment.

Toward that end, author Barbara Coloroso (2003) encourages educators to ask: What responsibilities are mine, and what responsibilities can I give my students?

Malinda Paige (2002), a teacher, agrees. The classroom is a community, she suggests, and members of that community should help ensure that it functions smoothly and with purpose. "Everyone in my classroom has a job," that, otherwise, "I would have to do," she says. And there simply isn't time for the teacher to control every aspect of the daily routine.

Indeed, Paige observes, the goal of classroom management to allow teachers to seize every opportunity for teaching.

Partners in the Process, Part 2

• When Children Make Rules
  In constructivist classrooms, young children's participation in rule making promotes their moral development.
• The Power of Voice in Schools and The Power of Voice in Schools: Bringing Democratic Ideals to Life
  Giving students voice means providing venues where students' opinions can actually have an impact on the school, making a real difference in how they grow and learn.

Barb Aust and Wendy Vine write in "The Power of Voice in Schools" that choice provides an "invitation to join." In what ways can you "invite" your students to join with you and their peers in learning?

• ProTeacher!
  This site features a collection of teachers' ideas for effective classroom management.
• A New Set of Rules
  This lesson plan from Teaching Tolerance will guide teachers and students as they create a classroom constitution. The authors have included ideas for modifying the lesson for middle- and high-school students.

View the references for this lesson.

Assessment Activity

This completes Lesson 2. In Lesson 3, we'll examine how teachers and students can ensure that the classroom management plan is embraced and followed by all.

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