Class Rules!!!

September 24, 2009



The very first day of school is exciting and frustrating, not only for
students, but also for teachers. Furthermore, this never changes
according to the amount of experience. Every new school year brings
newer excitement. However, your students are inquisitive about what
type of a teacher you are: are you a serious teacher? Or a friendly
one?
Students generally make a test for you including different moods and
behaviours for the first days of the year. They try to convince you to
accept their undesirable behaviours. If you let them to do those, the
whole year you’ll struggle with the problems. The teacher should show
his/her borders clearly, in some way. We, as teachers, can enable this
in different spontaneous situations in the class. Let me give you an
example about young learners. A second grade student (primary school)
wants to go to the restroom and you permit this behaviour during the
lesson. Once you permit, you cannot prevent it, then the whole class
starts to ask for going to the restroom. Teacher shouldn’t give
permission for such behaviours unless the student is in a really hard
situation. At this point, teacher’s strong feelings, anticipations and
experience play a big role. As we should set the borders, for the sake
of the positive learning environment, we candenominate this with some
in-class activities including the classroom rules. Here is an idea:

Teacher prepares big signs of classroom rules just like the big
traffic signs. Each sign should display a rule with a picture and a
short sentence. After the presentation of the rules with those
signs(just for a few minutes), teacher gives one sign to each student
and reads out a story. When they hear a sentence about the sign they
hold, they will raise it up and call out loud the rule. This will make
the rules and your “borders” more comprehensible.

Good luck with your first days at school throughout your teaching life.

Nilay UNVER