In my last post, I talked about setting expectations. As essential as this is to a successful classroom, rules and expectations alone cannot create the class community necessary for high quality learning. Rules are effectively prohibitive expectations: they set the bounds of acceptable behavior. Standards of positive expectations must be established as a class culture that makes positive behavior normative. A supportive class culture sets positive expectations. Rules are simply the base upon which a class community is built, and laying this foundation should be done in a manner conducive to creating a supportive class environment.
"Setting clear and high expectations" is a phrase that, during the summer term, was so heavily emphasized that it seemed to become an answer to all the future difficulties we would encounter as educators. It's not without reason: I've seen throughout my life that kids have a tendency to meet the expectations that you set for them, high or low. As important as it is, though, I've also observed that there isn't one surefire way to effectively set high expectations for every classroom in every situation
My senior year of high school, the administration created an initiative mandating each teacher to decorate their room. For most of my teachers, this was a nonissue. Their rooms were already decorated; why wouldn't they be? Why wouldn't you want a room reflective of your personality? For my physics teacher, a bleak box of whiteboard and cinderblock may have already been the perfect representation of his personality, but orders are orders. One afternoon, we watched him print out five sheets of paper, and, standing on his stool, tape them above his whiteboard. They spelled out in 250 point times new roman: "T-H-I-N-K," (the implied continuation being "before you ask"). A mantra consistent with his open disdain for answering student questions.
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Louis FantiniLongtime Student,
First Time Teacher. Archives
March 2016
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