The Decalogue

Every new class begins as a puzzle. Who are these people? How will they fit together? If they do, what will it look like?

In Modern Literature, which is big -- 29 juniors and seniors -- we spent the first three days of school attempting to put together a 1,000-piece puzzle. It allowed the students to relax and chat and get to know each other a little. But by day three, no more than half a dozen could efficiently work on it at once. So I broke them into groups of six and rotated them. Each group got 15 minutes to focus on finishing the puzzle.

The rest I asked to fill out index cards. On one side, they were to write about the best class they’d ever taken. On the flip side, they described the worst. When they finished, I urged them to trade their cards, talk about what they’d written, and see if they could come up with a set of general rules or principles for a successful learning community.

At first, all the rules seemed to be addressed to me, so I reminded the class that they, too, would have to agree to do or not to do certain things. We ran out of time before we completed the list, but over the weekend, I boiled it down into a sort of Decalogue, the Ten Commandments of our community. The first five apply to teachers, the last five to students.

Thou Shalt Not Lecture All the Time -- Not one student complained that a teacher talked too little. Everyone’s favorite classes included a variety of activities, including hands-on projects, films, and field trips. ‘Every Friday we played Jeopardy to remember what we learned that week,’ one student recalled fondly.

Thou Shalt Assign a Reasonable Amount of Homework -- They defined ‘reasonable’ as no more than 30 minutes per night (‘We have three other classes, too!’). Weekend assignments were universally condemned.

Thou Shalt Not Single Out -- One girl wrote ‘Mrs. ______ put me on the spot a bunch of times and when I didn’t know the answer, she just shook her head at me. It made me feel like an idiot.’ Conversely, most agreed that a teacher shouldn’t let one student dominate discussions.

Thou Shalt Know Thy Stuff -- If a teacher is lazy, unprepared or disorganized, students know it. Teachers were also blasted for being late to class, failing to keep order, speaking too softly, speaking too loudly, never telling jokes, telling too many jokes, and telling bad jokes.

Thou Shalt Remember Thy Students Have Lives Outside School -- Hence the restrictions on homework. But also, students want to talk about things that aren’t on the curriculum. ‘Mr. ______ taught us about English, but he also taught us a lot about life,’ one student wrote.

I reminded the class that our commandments had to apply to them as well as to me, so they came up with these:

Thou Shalt Make Friends -- Adolescents cling to their old friends and are shy about making new ones. That’s why they hate being assigned partners or choosing groups randomly. That’s why I always assign partners and choose groups randomly.

Thou Shalt Speak Up -- ‘A lot of smart people took this class,’ wrote one student of his best experience, ‘ so I got a lot of different views on things. We had deep discussions.’

Thou Shalt Not Speak Up While Someone Else is Talking -- Everyone agrees this rule is essential, but nobody obeys it. The best way to enforce it, I’ve found, is to obey it myself.

Thou Shalt Not Make Fun of Others -- Being teased can ruin your whole day.

Thou Shalt Not Slack -- In spite of all their warnings about too much homework, students want to be challenged. It’s a form of respect. ‘No immature projects,’ one wrote. ‘I don’t feel like I learned anything,’ several reported of their worst classes.

We didn’t complete either puzzle last week -- the jigsaw or the learning community -- but we got the broad outlines of each. The details will have to be filled in later.