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One of the most valuable life lessons I have learned as an adult is that, in most cases, we teach people how to treat us. Our actions or inactions communicate our approval of behavior to others. And while this advice has been helpful in my personal life, I have also applied this philosophy in my professional life.
One of the biggest downfalls I faced as a teacher in my first year was making the assumption that students would know how to behave and treat me. My first day of that first year was spent playing “getting to know you” games and introducing myself to my students. The second day, I dived head first into content and teaching, never stopping to establish class norms or communicate how I expected my students to behave. Within a few weeks, I was dealing with massive issues: students leaving without permission, rude comments being hurled across the classroom, bookshelves left in disarray. At the time, I blamed the kids. I went home exhausted after dealing with behavior issue after behavior issue. Now, as a veteran teacher, I realize that I was to blame. My classroom was out of control not because the kids were “bad” but because I hadn’t communicated my expectations. I hadn’t taught them how to treat me. Thankfully, I was on a block schedule for the first three years of my career, so I had a do-over after winter break.
Establishing Class Norms: The Process
When students enter our classrooms for the first time, we are obligated to teach them how to behave in these spaces; we, quite literally, must teach them how to treat us, each other, and the space. Establishing clear class norms is the key to holding students accountable to behave as expected. After trial-and-error, I have finally found a process for establishing class norms that works for me.
On the first day of school, I stand outside of the classroom and greet students as they enter. During the greeting, I inform them that instructions to get started are on the board. Students are met with a quick-write prompt : “How do you want people to treat you in this space?” Once the bell rings, I tell students to take out their journals or a piece of paper and respond to the prompt for five minutes. I have found that starting class this way communicates two things: 1. Students are expected to work from bell-to-bell and 2. Students are expected to write daily.
After the five minutes have passed, I establish partner pairs. I tell students that they will work with a partner or in a group nearly every day. Partner pairs can be established in a few different ways, but to begin with, I allow students to choose who they will work with. What they don’t know is that their partner pair will change eventually, but I’ve found that if students can choose who to work with for the beginning of the term, they become comfortable in the classroom quicker. Once students are in their partner pairs, I model how they will share their quick-write with one another. Then, I give students time to share. I do this to communicate that students will be expected to share their ideas with others.
After that, I tell the students to work with their partner pairs to develop a list of behaviors that will make the classroom a productive and safe space. As they work on their list, I walk around the room, popping in on the conversations that are happening. Typically, students will create a list that looks similar to the one below:
I ask students to circle the three most important behaviors on their list. Then, one person from each partner pair shares their list. As they share, I record their responses on the board. If any behaviors are repeated, I place a checkmark next to them. At the end, I have students review the list I have generated on the board, and together, we determine which five behaviors are most important. Typically, that list will look like this:
I inform the students that these are great behaviors, but now, we need to turn these into a list of class norms. After a quick discussion of what a “norm” is, I begin by saying something along the lines of, “I notice our list has “don’t interrupt” on it. Why should we not interrupt one another?” Inevitably, a student will respond with, “because it’s disrespectful.” Once I receive this response or something similar, I can talk about how we only want positive norms on our list. So, instead of writing, “Don’t be disrespectful” on our class norms list, I will write, “Be respectful.”
I’ll repeat this process until all the behaviors have been turned into class norms. A typically class norms anchor chart will have some variation of the following:
These class norms are recorded on an anchor chart and displayed in the room. I will repeat this process for each of my class periods and create unique anchor charts for each group of students.
Establishing Class Norms: The Effects
I establish class norms with my students for two main reasons: 1. Ownership and 2. Accountability. When students are part of the rule-making process, they are more invested in following the rules because they had a role in making them; therefore, when a norm has been violated, holding students accountable for redirecting their behavior isn’t about them getting in trouble but rather letting themselves and their classmates down.
My 7th grade pre-Algebra teacher asked my classmates and I to copy down the class rules from a laminated poster that was hung on a bulletin board in the front of the room. The corners of the poster were curled indicating its age and the length of time it had been in the same place. My teacher read the list of rules one by one as we wrote them down on a piece of notebook paper in our binders. I don’t remember a single rule from that poster, but I do remember feeling terrified of that teacher. I didn’t feel safe or comfortable. Class rules are meant to create a safe place for students, but what that teacher had done instead was impose rules onto us. Because we didn’t have a hand in establishing these rules, the rules were rigid and only reinforced by the fear we had of the consequences of breaking the rules.
Establishing the class norms with your students encourages them to feel a sense of ownership. The rules aren’t the teacher’s rules but rather the class’ rules, and because of that, the students feel more invested in upholding those expectations. Furthermore, when a norm is violated, the teacher is able to redirect the behavior by reminding the students that they agreed to these norms. Now, sometimes, students will want to deny ownership of these norms; they refuse to acknowledge their part in the creation process and suggest that the other kids made those rules. When this happens in my classroom, I pull the student to have a private conversation. During that conversation I will gently remind the student of the process we went through to establish the norms. If the student was present for that process, typically, they will acknowledge that they did, in fact, participate in the process and agree to the norms; however, if the student transferred into the classroom after the norms were established, the child may need an explanation of the rules and how they were created. Redirection shouldn’t result in humiliation or shame; the goal should be to remind students that the rules are theirs as much as the teacher’s.
I have found that, when students are part of the process to establish class norms, they’re willingness to hold each other and themselves accountable to those rules increases. Here’s an example of a recent norm violation and how I handled it:
Before I release students to complete a task, I always review the proper procedures. The procedures or steps to completion will be on the board and I verbalize the steps. Afterwards, I will call on students to provide a recap of the task. If I call on a student who did not hear me giving instructions, the student will begin looking around the room to provide the next step. I usually stand near the written directions and direct the student’s attention to the appropriate response. On this particular day, the student was having a difficult time and was attempting to provide the appropriate response. The student was using my cues to take notice of the instructions on the board and responded. Unfortunately, the response the student provided had already been stated. Before I could thank the student for their effort and redirect the student to the appropriate response, the classmate sitting next to the student loudly made a rude comment about the student’s intellect. At that moment, I knew I had the ability to model how to handle norm violations. I calmly asked the student who hurled the insult to step into the hallway. I informed that student that I would be out shortly and to wait for me. After the student left the room, I finished reviewing the task and released the students to begin working. Then, I stepped into the hallway to have a conversation with the student.
When I step into the hallway with a student, I always start by asking this question: “Why are we out here?” The student might respond with an answer that sounds like, “I don’t know” or “You told me to come out here.” If this is the initial response, I might reply by asking, “What events happened just before you were asked to step outside?” Typically, I can lead a student to taking ownership of the behavior that resulted in removal from class. After the student has acknowledged their behavior, I will ask them to remind me of our class norms. Once the student is able to connect their behavior to the norm that was violated, I ask the student how they think we should proceed. I’ll ask guiding questions such as, “You have violated a class norm. How should we reestablish the class norm?” In this particular situation, the student and I agreed that an apology was necessary. So, the student reentered the classroom, approached the student who had been the recipient of the insult, and sincerely apologized.
This incident only ended positively because the student felt invested in the classroom community and its norms. The student understood that the insult directly violated our norm of being respectful to one another, and because I was able to remind the student of their role in the creation of those norms, the student took ownership of the violation and held themself accountable to the consequences. The other students saw that I take the norms seriously; they saw the student apologize for their behavior and reenter the classroom. Having clear norms empowers students and teachers alike.
Exit Ticket:
How do you establish your classroom rules? Does the process look the same for every class you teach? How do you hold students accountable? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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