Building Student Expectations

Hello everyone,

In honor of the A-trackers that are coming on, I thought I'd say something about opening day.

When I was in high school, we were invited to the customary opening assembly to explain the school rules to us. One of the vice principals--a new guy--got up and kept us in stitches with his witty explanation of what we were supposed to do and what we should avoid. He made it clear that if we had any problems at all, we should come and see him, and he would help us out. He was really funny, and we pronounced him "cool." (Yes, we used that word when I was in high school.)

Within a month, he was one of the most hated people on campus. He had built for himself an impossible set of expectations. We thought that he would always be witty and entertaining in every assembly. When we wasn't, in the very next assembly, we rebelled. We thought that he would always be our friend, but when someone went to him with a drug problem, he didn't handle it the way they expected, and word soon got around that he could not be trusted. The first time he tried to enforce the rules, he had an argument from people that thought that he would let everyone slide if they were friendly with him. His intentions were good, but he wasn't superman, and he wasn't our best friend. He couldn't possibly do everything he led us to believe he could.

If students expect you to be witty and entertaining all the time, or if they expect you to be available for them every single second of every day, you are doomed to failure. No one can possibly maintain that. Every professional comedian, psychologist, and social worker knows it. As soon as you fail to live up to the students' expectations (and it won't be long), they will reject you as untrustworthy, and you might as well be in another profession.

If, however, your students expect you to be all business, to be an unswerving enforcer of high standards of behavior and academia, and to be a tried and true adult rather than an arrested adolescent, then they will be pleasantly surprised whenever you are interesting or funny or kind or understanding of their needs. You will feel mean and distant at first, but you will actually end up way closer to them than the one who comes in to be one of them and ends up being a hated outcast.

I don't mean to be cruel or unkind. I just mean that you should be firm, just, and fair--without exceptions. If you set rules, you enforce them. Let the kids think that, in your class at least, work begins the first day and continues at the highest level possible until the semester is over. Those high expectations are much easier to maintain than the ones that suggest you are always funny, always cool, always understanding, and always there for them.

If you're on B-track, you can do this when you get back. If you're on C-track, do your best. For A-trackers, by all means, seize the day and make this a great semester.

Jeff Combe