First Day Rubrics and Rules

Hello everyone,

My first year teaching was a disaster. The only reason I didn't quit, I think, was because I had a great mentor and a great department chair who both just smiled and told me it would get better.

One of the things I learned was how my management mistakes at the beginning of the year came back and attacked me at the end of the year.

Now, I can't say that I had completely lost control of my classes by the end of the year. I had some control, but there was always the feeling that I was one step away from losing it for good. By the end of the year, my students and I had an uneasy truce, but there were frequent skirmishes, and I knew that they didn't respect me very much if at all.

I was more successful my second year because I learned that, if I were strict at the beginning, I would save myself grief later on. I still made a lot of mistakes, but management was no longer my entire focus.

Here are a few suggestions for those of you coming back on B-track, and the rest of you who may be planning the beginning of next year:

Make your rules things that you can enforce. It's usually best to state them somewhat broadly, then enforce them more narrowly. For example, you may say that your rules are threefold: Respect the teacher, respect the school, and respect each other. Then you enforce the first two rules by insisting that students be strictly on time. You enforce the last rule by insisting that only one person talks at a time. "Respecting the school" means that there must be strict obedience to school-wide rules.

(The reason you're broad in your rule definitions is because you don't want to get into legal wrangles over the meanings of your rules or the occasional exceptions that you might grant later in the year. Sometimes students will use the opportunity to argue fine points of your rules, either to get out of work or to get out of the consequence for disobedience; don't give them that opportunity.)

My grading rubric, on the contrary, was very specific, and very strictly adhered to. I tried as much as possible to never let any emotions sway my grading rubric. If I told students that 300 words was the minimum size of an essay, I gave a fail to an essay that was 299 words because it was below the minimum. (I gave the student a chance to rewrite if the essay was on time, but I was very firm in the grade.) This strictness in the rubric (with reasonable opportunities to improve) helped my classroom management a lot. (By the way, the strictness in the rubrics took me more than eight years to catch on to, and was partly the result of my post interviews with students.)

Be firm but kind. Never be cruel, but don't be wishy-washy either. Both are mistakes.

Today is as good a day as any to firm up your management. At the very least, practice for next year.

Jeff Combe