Then, for years, my students ‘wrote’ rules together…individual, group, class, and combined classes…funny how they pretty much looked like the rules I wrote myself.

THEN, I started asking students to commit themselves to their own code of behavior…what they knew they needed to do in order to contribute to a positive class. They wrote, and then created, beatiful codes of personal conduct.

THEN, at the end of my career, I sort of went back to the ‘no’ control… No rules posted, no group rules, no individual codes. Just people, in the same space, working together…most kids never even noticed there were no rules. We just created our culture.

Kids know what’s right and wrong. They will try to get away with exactly as much as they can. They will also rise to the occasion when we trust them…

Hmm..I may have more to say about this.