Polly Bath: We need to make sure to teach our students the school’s values. If your school has four values, then it would take four months to teach them–one value each month.

For example, if responsibility is one of your school’s values, then for the first four weeks of school, every single classroom should be talking about responsibility. Every single classroom is talking about being on time, on task, being prepared. Responsibility should be at our first day assembly. The WHOLE building is talking about responsibility.

We should tell the students: “This month, we’re talking about responsibility. I want you to find it wherever you can, uncover it wherever you can.” We should set up a “Responsibility Wall.” If a student sees an act of responsibility, have them write it down and add it to the wall.

Make sure the kids are breathing in responsibility. Their chewing on it and digesting it for the first month of school, JUST responsibility. We don’t want to teach all four values the first month of school, just one at a time. Letting each one sink into our students.

Now, after those four weeks of teaching responsibility, what do you think it will mean to that population in your school?
They will know what it is! They will know what the expectation is! So, when we have to deal out a consequence when they aren’t doing it, it will make sense to them, they will understand why!