This post is developed after re-reading the Tenets of Successful Teaching and deciding that there is so much more than teaching than just teaching. This post will be filed in the Philosophy page under pedagogy.
The unwrittten curriculum is the things that are learned that are not taught in every classroom in every school. Trust me, despite the struggles your students have learning the material you teach, they do learn more things than you teach them.
For instance they learn about you!
They learn what you expect of them and they learn that they if it is expected for them to sit down and listen or if they can stand in the back of the room and learn to juggle.
The thing that I have come to realize is that a successful classroom environment has more to do with expectations than it does with rules. That is why we encourage general rules that will encompass most everything.
Expectations are things like: I expect my students to actively participate in class activities and discussions.
Rules are as follows: Everyone must be in their seat and facing the front and not talking to their neighbors, unless the assignment is to talk to your neighbor in which case that is permitted, but otherwise you must have the expressed written consent of your teacher, parent, and administrator.
That is a little dramatic to say the least, but the idea is that rules are rigid and easily broken. Students treat it like a game, in which they receive points for getting away with breaking a rule and bonus points for finding loop holes in the rules so that everyone may break them.
So instead, teach your students the high expectations that you have set for them.
You can not break an expectation only fall short of it. We are really only talking about the difference in wording.
Having a rule in your class that attempts to enforce participation and listening is only worded differently than having an expectation that's purpose is to achieve the same result. However, the difference I believe comes in the consequences.
When someone breaks a rule there is usually an immediate consequence for those actions. You do the crime you pay the time. When someone falls short of an expectation, then their is only a disappointment from a shortfall.
When we expect something it is reasonable, probable, or capable. It is a positive outlook. Whereas rules are when we regulate behavior based on the assumption that without regulation offenses will likely ensue. It is a negative outlook on behavior.
We could expect that our students follow the rules but a higher and more appropriate expectation is that we expect our students to govern their own behavior so that we do not need rules to enforce it.
I know this issue of classroom management is a struggle. I know that some students are unable to self regulate and need boundaries to be put in place for them, however this should be our aim. To teach your students to be able to self regulate so that rules are unnecessary.
What do think about student behavior? Is there need to regulate? Is this just wishful thinking?
