Think of the rule that you never enforce. Maybe it’s hats, or gum in the classroom, or cell phone use in the hallway, or eating outside the cafeteria, or using a black pen on Tuesdays, or whatever. There’s one, the bridge too far. The beginning of The Slide.
In general, I detest rules. It’s congenital. Of course, boundaries are the essence of society, and we must have them. I like setting my expectations at the upper limit, with a few ground floor expectations for consistency’s sake: Respect, Responsibility, Cooperation, Preparation, Engagement. I’m sure that’s a few too many; it could begin and end with Respect.
But the rules. Oh, the rules. At our one-to-one school, there was a laptop-free lunch several years ago. Then, we opened the top floor for the desperate. Then it spread downwards. Now, lunchtime is a battlefield of spell-casters and Gossip Girl-heads strewn prone throughout the campus, slackjawed, staring. Conversation, when it happens, revolves around which demon to slay, which is a step up from TV induced silence. Digital Natives, living in their Brave New World? Not exactly.
Let’s ignore, for now, the students’ free periods. (JOKING)
And there’s food strewn about, and litter, and hats, and halter-tops, and cell-phones, and a bunch of stuff that I don’t enforce regularly, mostly because, you know, come on, right? nobody is, and what a hassle, and are you kidding me? and so on. This is The Slide.
Straight-up – I am a guilty participant in The Slide, the loosening of rules and expectations, and witness first hand the bleeding over of one loosened rule into the transgression of many others. This is the essence of any society or institution: We’ve got to agree on a few boundaries, or the boundary I care most about will be transgressed, just as the ones I don’t care about are transgressed before me.
Schools often have too many rules. Those that we choose should be essential, and five or less in number (probably). We should model said behaviors. This is obvious. However, discarding the rules that we can live without is a foray into a dark barn of sacred cows, lit differently for each student and teacher by culture, background, and values, particularly in an international school. To halt The Slide, though, this is exactly where an institution must go, examining our shared values and laying them on the table for all to see.
Of course, it’s all theoretical for me. I have been nowhere that actually went through an open process of reexamining the detritus of the years, leftover rules and concepts to which some adhere and of which others know nothing at all. I wonder what it’s like. Tough as it may be, hard conversations about priorities and the inevitable give and take seem like a way to reset, or to halt The Slide.
EduCommunicate 