Rule Number One – covering classrooms rules the first day of school . . .

.  . . . or the second, if time runs out the first day.

                Your classroom rules needed to be posted prominently in the classroom. This is necessary for two reasons: one, the administration usually requires it; two, you will need to refer to this posting off and on during the course of the school year to prevent troubles in your classroom and smooth out your classroom management.

                My rules were always numbered and Number One was always “Follow Directions.” I spent the better part of the period going over rule one. I gave students the option of just listening or taking notes, however, they needed to understand that questions about the rules would be on the first quiz, test and on the semester final exam. The multiple choice questions would be about what I said about each rule, the rules would be the answers to choose from.

                My teaching style involved a great deal of asking questions prior to giving information. The discussion of the rules followed the same format. I started by telling students that rule one was ‘Follow Directions’ and then I asked why they thought that was the first rule. The answers would vary from they needed follow directions in order to be successful in class to more specific answers, such as lab safety. If no one answered ‘because it covers everything,’ I would go on to ask if there was anything that might happen in class that this rule didn’t apply to. Then I got the required response.

                Stories are a really powerful way of teaching. Often I find students remember the story long after they have forgotten the principle. Discussion of rules also involved story telling. I would tell them this story about a time this rule had meant the difference between severe problems in class and a successful outcome. I had a student many years ago who was very unstable. He was a big kid, larger than most ninth graders. I kept him in a seat separated from the rest of the class as much as possible in an attempt to avoid trouble between him and the other students. One day, just at the start of class, I saw he had not gone to his seat, but was standing over another students and he had his fists clenched. He was yelling, “What did you say about me?” His tracker (she followed extreme at-risk students)was in the room at the time. She was trying to get him to go to the library. I was saying ‘It’s time to go,’ but he absolutely refused to budge. Finally I said to the seated student, “Apologize.” That student answered, ‘But I didn’t say anything.’ My answer: “I know you didn’t, but apologize anyway.” His reply, ‘But I didn’t say anything.” Finally I looked right at him and said, “Rule number one is follow directions, I am giving you a direction; now follow it. Apologize.” With that the seated student said “I’m sorry.” The standing student relaxed and left the room with the tracker. The rest of the story: he was removed from school after that and sent to a special program for troubled students.

                I then told my students that this was my favorite rule and asked for their input on way that was the case. Answered varied, but usually centered on the fact that it covered everything. This is where I would have to explain: ‘This is my favorite rule because I have the most fun with it.” That usually resulted in puzzled looks from the entire class. The explanation required me to get a student to role play, which was always fun for the class to watch.

                The story goes like this: ‘For some reason this is a guy thing, so ladies, if you don’t want to listen you don’t have to. A guy does something that is rather annoying, like tapping his pencil.’ I turn to the role-playing student and ask him to tap his pencil. Then I turn to him and say. ‘Please don’t tap your pencil.’ At this point he is instructed to slouch back in his seat, fold his arms over is chest, look at the rules out of the corner of his eye and say, ‘And where on your rules does it say I can’t?” His body language now tells the world he thinks he’s ‘got’ me. At this point I am delighted. I tell my students that I now have him in the palm of my hand and am about to squash him like a bug..  I answer in all innocence, “Please read rule one.” He obliges: “Fol-low dir-ec-tions.” This young man deflates like a blow-up toy that just got all the air let out of it.

                I explain to the students that I tell this story so they don’t embarrass themselves, and then I go on: “One year I told this story at the beginning of the semester, as always. Later in the year we were doing an activity using pipettes. I know pipettes make excellent squirt guns, but you are not to use them at way. I tell you right in the instructions do not use these are squirt guns.  As we were doing the lab, I saw a young man squirting his partner with a pipette. I said ‘Don’t use it as a squirt gun.’ He reply: ‘And where . . .’ At that point the entire class burst out laughing. Immediately he knew he had just shot himself in the foot. He put his face in his hands and almost cried.”

                After you have taught for a few years you always have many stories that come from your classroom. Use them to illustrate the reason for your rules. Students will remember those rules for years after they leave you class. And they will help ease your classroom management problems. After all, who wants to become the story for coming years’ students to hear?