#4 in Strategies for Teachers Series

"This book will pay off dozens of times over in improved classroom organization and management. It's clear, readable, filled with specific instructions and examples of how to set up a democratic yet self-disciplined classroom."
     –Maurice J. Elias
      Professor, Rutgers University

"Rules in School sparkles with the small wisdoms that only come from years of experience."
     –Marilyn Watson
      Author of Learning to Trust and Among Friends

Learn an approach for helping students become invested in creating and living by classroom rules. K-8 teachers in a wide range of settings have used this approach to establish calm, safe learning environments and teach children self-discipline.

Written by four experienced classroom teachers, this book offers practical techniques for:

• Helping students articulate their hopes and dreams for school
• Involving students in generating classroom rules that grow out of their hopes and dreams
• Modeling, practicing, and role playing the rules
• Using teacher language effectively to reinforce the rules
• Teaching children about logical consequences for rule breaking
• Choosing effective logical consequences
• Teaching children to live by the rules outside the classroom

Includes separate chapters on what this approach looks like at various grade levels.

Table of Contents

Introduction Whose Rules?
Chapter One Creating Rules with Students
Chapter Two Practicing the Rules: Bringing Them to Life
Chapter Three When Students Break the Rules
Chapter Four Grades K-2
Chapter Five Grades 3-5
Chapter Six Grades 6-8
Chapter Seven Taking the Rules Beyond the Classroom
Conclusion Rules Are What Make the Good Things Happen
Appendix A Problem Solving with Students
Appendix B Recommended Resources on Discipline in Classrooms and Schools

Teacher's Perspective
Creating self-control, safety, and a caring community sets the tone for the day and the entire school year. This book focuses on proactive and reactive strategies used in a Responsive Classroom to establish a positive social climate and rigorous academic standards. Create rules for your classroom based on students hopes and dreams and learn specific strategies for reminding, redirecting, and reinforcing those rules. You will also get a more indepth iunderstanding of logical consequences and how to introduce them to your students. Learn to maintain integrity and a sense of fairness in your classroom and ultimately change your students' behavior into that of eager, engaged learners. This is the "how to" guide to keep students practicing, modeling, and maintaining the sense of a strong community. The photos give you a glimpse at what types of displays support a democratic classroom. You will feel more confident introducing consequences to your students and following through with them in a respectful way.
     –Carolyn Rottman

Ever since I attended the Responsive Classroom 1 training, I have been developing Hopes and Dreams with my students. From our Hopes we have developed our classroom rules and supported them with logical consequences. When I returned to my class from maternity leave, I was faced with a class where the classroom rules meant nothing. I knew I needed help and turned to Rules in School as a resource. It helped me review the process of making classroom rules and how to handle students that break a rule. It helped me think about the question: What rules do you think we will need so that everyone can learn? I was reminded that students should develop rules that help us to take care of ourselves, each other and our environment... We took several days to record why we have each rule and what it looks and sounds like in and out of class. We also revisited our logical consequences. Through a long, arduous process the children began to live in the rules.
     –Daron White

Northeast Foundation for Children, 2003, 268 pages, paper
ISBN: 1-892989-10-7

Other books in the Strategies for Teachers series:
The Morning Meeting Book
First Six Weeks of School
Classroom Spaces That Work