These strategies are particularly useful for developing a classroom contract.
1. Students develop rules for the teacher.
This option invites students to formulate rules or guidelines that
they want their teacher to follow. There is a paradoxical relationship
between sharing power and having more. By empowering others, we tend
to receive more authority and respect. Students take pleasure and
pride in being given the opportunity to identify teachers' imperfections.
When teachers respond by making some changes, students are empowered in
a very positive way. Teachers who feel threatened or reluctant can
limit students to two or three rules, and they can veto any rule that violates
school policies, runs counter to their values, or would make teaching impossible.
2. Students develop rules for each other.
Students can collaborate in small groups to generate a list of rules
(and, possibly, consequences) for each other. When the lists are
consolidated, rules can be voted on and accepted if they are supported
by at least 70 percent of the students.
3. Students vote on negotiable rules.
Younger children, or those with little experience in cooperative decision-making
may be helped if the teacher generates a list of rules. Those necessary
rules having to do with safety or enforcement of school policies are starred
or flagged. They are non-negotiable. Other rules, however,
especially those relating to classroom procedures, should be presented
as suggestions. Students can be encouraged to discuss, debate, amend,
and then approve or reject these rules by voting.
4. Teacher defines the principles and students develop the rules.
Teachers present the principles that are most important to them and have the students
develop specific rules connected to each of these.
Discipline that involves students is more time-consuming at the beginning, but it is also more effective. It takes longer to involve students as partners than it does to simply announce how things are going to be. Involving students up front, however, means that fewer problems are likely to arise later and less time will be required for dealing with them. Because of the high student turnover in most classrooms, classroom contracts require
frequent updating.
