End Totalitarian Teaching (Part 1 of 7)

This article is the first in a seven-part series that implores teachers to abandon their attachment to outdated, oppressive, and arbitrary control issues, in the name of harboring a more positive, fostering learning environment.  Each part of the series focuses on a different aspect of control.  Part 1 introduces the general problem and focuses on the aspect of classroom rules.

Introduction

People often ask me whether I struggle with discipline issues (especially given my school’s reputation), or, when they already know that it’s no struggle at all, they ask me what my “secret” is.  It’s no secret.  It’s a primitive social skill – one that has gone by a variety of names: “the golden rule,” “humanitarianism,” “common courtesy…”  In my classroom, it goes by one name: Respect.

We live in an age where students are becoming increasingly disenchanted with our decrepit educational system.  We struggle more and more each year to convince them that “all of this” is for their own good.  Perhaps that’s true.  While I have argued (Greer, Alpha, 2010) that academics have limited utilitarian benefits at best, there is still much that society has to gain from higher learning.  Nevertheless, too many teachers have forgotten what it is like to sit in those cramped desks, to suffer the indignity of being scolded like a child while having adulthood forced down our throats.  Too many teachers subscribe to the mistaken belief that “order” can only be derived from “control,” and then they attempt to control not only their students’ thoughts, but their every behavior.  They lord themselves over their pupils like some infallible, invulnerable, god-like master, and then they wonder why the students won’t love them or even share in their philanthropy; why they won’t worship them at the foot of the ivory tower; why they turn instead to graven images on YouTube, and they worship American Idols.  In addition to the complete restructuring of the content standards I have already suggested in Diversity v. Acculturation and in Inefficacies, Part 3, the best way to win students’ commitment to the educational environment is to ensure that it is welcoming, not totalitarian.  Over the next seven articles, I will explain how to do just that.

Imperative #1:  Stop Reciting Rules

I think syllabi are largely useless at the high school level; even more useless is demanding the students get their parents’ signatures on them.  But since I am mandated to distribute one, it is here – and only here (by which I mean it is not posted in the classroom) – where you will find my one and only class rule.  It reads as follows:

Class Rule & Discipline

I have only one class rule: RESPECT.  I ask that you respect your fellow students, respect me as I will respect you, and above all, respect yourself.  You should always conduct yourself in a manner becoming of a professional and dignified young adult.  Take pride in your work.  Take pride in your appearance and your reputation, and take pride in your education.  If we maintain an atmosphere of respect in our classroom, all other concerns fall into place.

Minor instances of disrespect and minor class disturbances will be addressed with a private, verbal warning.  Chronic disturbances or instances of blatant disrespect, defiance, or academic dishonesty will be addressed by written referral to your guidance coordinator in the office.

I have invoked the provisions of the second paragraph three times in three years, and one of those times, I was substituting in someone else’s classroom.  The reader should not take this to mean that I am an “easy” teacher.  My reputation as “hard” precedes me.  Nevertheless, my students’ performance on standardized tests is consistently high, and I have been complemented many times by teachers who receive my former students the following year; they are impressed by the students’ prerequisite knowledge.  This is because rules do not equal learning.

This goes against everything a young teacher will learn about classroom management in his or her early education (Greer, Teacher “Education,” 2010), but it is true.  It is common practice for teachers to start the year by reading through their syllabus, paying particular attention to some copious list of Rules and Consequences they have articulated therein, which is also conspicuously posted somewhere on the classroom wall.  Some will go to the trouble of calling it a “behavior contract” or something to that effect, and they will require students’ and parents’ signatures, as if the act of signing documents physically prevents human beings from violating their terms.  By the end of the first day of school, after visiting all their new classes, most students have spent six hours of their lives being told rules and regulations and consequences, most of which they have heard many times before.  The worst part about this (aside from the fact that six hours of school have lapsed and they haven’t learned anything) is that it is completely unnecessary.  They are minors.  School is compulsory.  School rules must be followed.  They don’t have to agree.  We don’t have to make them aware of what the rules are.  The rules are printed in their handbooks, and it is the students’ responsibility to know them.  How often do you get out of a traffic ticket by telling the officer, “I didn’t know that was illegal…”?

It isn’t prison.  It’s school.  Stop reciting rules.  Start reciting poetry.