Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 3

The part of this chapter that stood out to me the most was the idea that teachers should involve their students in a discussion about behavioral expectations. It points out that if teachers take the time to make their rules clear from the beginning, than it becomes a lot more fair to use this as a part of assessments. It's also a lot easier to enforce these rules if every student has been made aware of them. It also suggests that putting these expectations in writing is a really good way to make them permanent and to have a resource to refer to when a rule is broken.

This idea struck me because discipline is one of the facets of teaching that worries me the most. The teachers that I had who I disliked the most were those that had unfair or inconsistent methods of disciplining. Because of this I take a lot of what was said by the student authors to heart. One boy stated, "Students don't want only the principals and teachers to be in control, they want the students to be more involved" (39). I really want to be the kind of teacher who allows the students to be involved in the disciplinary decision making, because that way they are more likely to want to follow the rules that they have had a part in making.