I can remember clearly the hour I stopped laying down the law--the rules, guidelines and procedures--on the first day of school. At our faculty meeting the previous day, my middle school principal said, "If I stop in your room tomorrow while I'm making the rounds, I want to see you reading the students your classroom rules. I want to see them posted on the wall and kids writing them down." He suggested we give our pupils a quiz over our classroom routines, stressing the cost of non-compliance, making kids' scores on that quiz their first grade of the year.

And for many years I did just that. The principal ran a tight ship--too tight for some parents' liking, in fact--but it was a good place to teach. I am pretty sure that was not the result of our annual Day of Rules, but because it was a small community full of two-parent families who cared deeply about their kids' education.

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