Out with Class Rules, in with a Community Charter!
"People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices."
While relaxing on the beach in the summer and thinking about the upcoming September school year, I had an idea to throw out my usual review of class rules and have students develop a class community charter of rights and responsibilities. My reasons for doing this were:
1. Half of my students would be the same as the previous year, so they would already know my class expectations.
2. Students had learned about the rights of a child during a grade six socials unit. I thought it would be a helpful practice for them to reflect on the rights they want in their learning community and the responsibilities they have that go along with those rights.
September came and we created our 7F Community Charter. More detail on how we created this further below.
Then I read Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn. In his book, Alfie Kohn makes an argument against the pop behaviourism idea "do this and you'll get that." He argues that parents, teachers, and managers attempting to control behaviours with goodies or threats, also known as carrots and sticks, will not actually create the motivated children, students, or employees they desire. These rewards may work in the short term but the person being manipulated will eventually come to see the task they are completing as a means to the reward. If the reward is a grade, the student will complete the assignment to see what mark they get instead of focusing on the learning content and process. If the reward is being paid money for scoring a goal in soccer, the child will do whatever they can to score the goal themselves, potentially hurting their team in the process. If the goal is achieving an incentive payout for reaching a certain sales objective, the work that needs to be completed along the way becomes the obstacle to reaching their monetary reward. All of these are examples of do this and you will get that. The "this" (valuable work or learning) becomes less important than the "that" (grades and payouts).
Alfie Kohn suggests that people will have an intrinsic desire to complete their learning or work if they are able to collaborate, work on meaningful content, and have meaningful choice in what they do. Without intending to, I had begun a process with my class that was accidentally going along with what Kohn suggested as important in building intrinsic motivation.
Collaboration: My students brainstormed on their own first, and then worked in groups with chart paper and markers to answer four questions.
Question #1: How do you want the students of 7F to treat each other this year?
Question #2: How do you want the students of 7F to speak to each other this year?
Question #3: What type of environment/classroom helps you learn best?
Question #4: What are some responsibilities that you have as a learner? (Look back at what you think is important in how you treat, speak and learn and decide on what your responsibilities are if these were our rights as learners!)
Once all of these questions were complete and on chart paper we hung them up around class. Each student received four post-it notes. They completed a gallery walk of the class and picked their top response from each question. They wrote the responses down on their post-it notes, and stuck them on labelled areas of the white board. A few student volunteers went through the responses with me and we chose the most common responses. They then helped draft what became the 7F Community Charter of Rights and Responsibilities. Once we were happy with it, every student signed it. The charter is laminated and currently hangs on our door right near the entrance/exit of our class.
Content: The content of this task was personal. It gave students a voice in deciding what their class community would look like.
Choice: Students chose their responses and helped select what was most important to them. We then worked together to complete the final charter that they would all agree to. To give them more choice next time I could have them create the questions and then answer them as well.
Now that we have our community charter we use it to guide how we speak, treat, and interact during class. If there is a behaviour issue, we have a discussion about what went wrong and how we can better fulfill our responsibility as a member of the community next time. Their own creation is holding them accountable for how they act as a classmate.
Alfie Kohn spends a lot of time explaining the importance of teaching students and children the importance of making responsible decisions. He believes that if we want to create caring, responsible, and reflective adults they need to practice this as a child. Instead of telling students what they did wrong and giving them consequences, we should be having discussions about what went wrong and what decisions could be made to avoid this in the future.
“Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.”
― Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes
Since finishing this book I have been going back to the original community charter more often. Today I had the opportunity for a teachable moment with a student. We discussed what went wrong and went to look at our charter of rights and responsibilities. The student identified where he broke the charter and suggested options that would help him make a more positive decision in the future. It was a productive conversation!
Hopefully some of my thoughts have been helpful for you as you help your students grow and learn!
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