Honestly, most classroom rules I have seen range for unnecessary to downright silly. Do you really need to make it a rule that students bring their books to class? If they don’t, is lunch detention really going to solve the problem? Wouldn’t it be easier to just give them a book and move on?
Decide on three to five classroom rules. Any more than that and the students (and you for that matter) will have a hard time remembering them.
Principle Three Tip Sheet: Setting Classroom Rules
I must point out that I prefer them not to be called ‘rules’ to begin with. Doesn’t it sound so top-down and
authoritative? Since the classroom is a community that is built and equally shared among all of its
inhabitants, these guidelines should be something that the class buys into. Each year I begin by teaching my
second graders the meaning of the word commitment and explain how a commitment is a promise. After
multiple days of brainstorming what we want our classroom community to be like, we narrow the list down to
the four most cumulative items. These ‘Class Commitments’ are posted on the wall year around. At the
bottom of the commitments, I write these words “Icommit to do these things to keep my class fun and
safe.” Each student raises his/her right and and repeats this vow then we each (yes, me too) trace our
hands on paper then cut them out, decorate them with our names, and post them around the commitments.
As the year progresses, students commonly speak to one another by bringing up the commitments that need
to be restored.