Julia G. Thompson

January 1, 1970

Just as published rules are the values, attitudes, and expected behaviors that influence our actions, hidden rules also play a significant role in our professional lives. To the uninitiated, they are the unspoken expectations that can erode confidence when naïve teachers misread situations and are blindsided by their own ignorance.

An example of a hidden rule is a directive that appears in many faculty handbooks: “No food should leave the cafeteria. Students should not be permitted to eat or drink in classrooms.” While this directive may be stated in unarguable terms, it is frequently ignored by many teachers who allow water bottles or snacks in class.

Another hidden rule involves student dress codes. Even though a dress code may be published in various places for staff members, students, and their parents or guardians to read, actual enforcement varies from teacher to teacher. Some teachers follow the letter of the dress code, others follow the spirit, and still others don’t appear to notice student attire at all.

While knowledge, understanding, and acceptance of these hidden rules can empower new teachers, ignorance and misunderstandings can make unfamiliar professional duties even more difficult.

Currently, many teachers rely on these methods to learn about the hidden rules in their schools:

1. Direct experience, both positive and negative
2. Gossip and informal conversations with other teachers
3. Mentors who can find time to help with this issue


Ten Reasons New Teachers May Find Difficulties with the Hidden Rules in a School

1. There may be a disconnect between the information that is published for faculty and staff and what is the actual, accepted practice in their schools.

2. New teachers may not have sufficient opportunities to observe other teachers as they instruct and interact with students. New teachers need role models.

3. Inexperienced teachers are frequently so overwhelmed with the newness of each day’s activities that they can miss subtle nuances of behavior, expectations, and other important information.

4. New teachers often lack the experience to interpret unfamiliar situations accurately.

5. New teachers not only underestimate, but can also overestimate their knowledge, their personal skill levels, and their understanding of school issues.

6. New teachers may not want to ask questions when the answers may appear obvious to others. No one wants to appear less than intelligent in front of colleagues.

7. Unless information is explicit, it can be open to various levels of interpretation and enforcement.

8. Mentors and other induction leaders often need to focus on nuts and bolts issues at the start of a school year and don’t have an opportunity to convey information about the hidden rules of their school.

9. Too much is too new for inexperienced teachers to rely on past events, their intuition, or common sense as they make judgments that affect their students’ well-being.

10. Relying on unofficial information such as gossip can lead to even more confusion for inexperienced teachers.

Other, more trustworthy resources for new teachers to learn about the hidden rules of their profession could include:
• Professional Organizations
• Observation of other teachers
• Collaboration with other teachers
• Online forums such as:

ProTeacher Community (www.proteacher.net) Here teachers can find teacher chats, blogs, and discussions geared for pre-kindergarten to grade eight teachers.

A to Z Teacher Stuff (forums.atozteacherstuff.com) Educators can interact with others in forums of interest to all teachers, especially new teachers.

Teachers.Net (teachers.net) This site offers over 150 teacher chat boards organized by grade level, curriculum, region, and special interests.

TheApple (www.theapple.com) Diverse groups, discussions, and forums make this site one of the most popular on the Internet. Teachers can join groups, participate in discussions, read and respond to blogs, and much more.

Teachers Network (teachersnetwork.org) Their “New Teachers Helpline,” staffed by experienced New York City teachers, guarantees a response to posted questions within seventy-two hours.

Teacher Focus (www.teacherfocus.com) Teachers can meet colleagues, chat, ask questions of experts, and browse thousands of articles posted by users.

Teacher Lingo (teacherlingo.com) This blogging community connects readers with over 1,000 bloggers at “Teacher Blogs.”

At the recent Eleventh New Teacher Center Symposium in San Jose, California, participants in a workshop session generated a list of some of the most common hidden rules that can be found in a learning environment.

You can use the list below to generate ideas about the hidden rules that may be causing new teachers in your school confusion and trouble.

Many, many thanks to the session participants who so generously volunteered their ideas to generate the list that follows.

Recertification and Professional Development

1. Know how long you have to establish or clear your credentials according to the requirements of your state and school district.
2. Know the deadlines and due dates related to recertification so that you can meet those requirements in plenty of time to be rehired.
3. Make sure to learn the date when placement decisions for the following year will be made.
4. Find out what it means to have something put into your permanent record file. Often teachers do not know what is in the file and how or when those documents will be used.
5. Make sure you know the date that to submit for voluntary transfer.
6. Many states require that new teachers file a professional certification plan for the few years of their career. Learn about your obligations related to this so that you can meet every deadline easily.
7. Be sure that you credentials are in order when a RIF (non-renewal) occurs.
8. Program improvement schools often may not share the number of professional development hours that will be required of you.
9. Maintain contract hours even during a presentation.
10. Keep your stuff to yourself.

Exceptional Students

1. Special education teachers should not be held accountable for “fixing” exceptional students.
2. Gifted students may not always perform at a higher achievement level than their peers.
3. Students in a gifted and talented program still need a great deal of supervision and support.

General Instructional Concerns

1. If your school has a “No videos ever!” rule, be sure to check whether instructional videos are included in this mandate. Some videos are helpful and can be instructional.
2. Your school district’s copyright policy may be stricter than a regular copyright policy. Pay attention to it.
3. Even if you think that no one in your school pays attention to copyright policy, you should check before you attempt to violate it.
4. Find out how your school enforces a policy on plagiarism.
5. Establish a homework policy and stick to it.
6. Plan engaging assignments to keep all students interested and discipline issues under control.

Professional Dress

1. On “Dress Down Fridays,” dress how other staff members dress--unless some of the other teachers are slobs.
2. Dress appropriately for school.
3. When district office personnel are due to arrive in your class, take care to dress up.
4. Find out who enforces the dress code for professionals at your school. How will you know if you violate it?
5. Be aware of the impact of professional dress on your reputation with your students, their families, and your peers.
6. Avoid obvious tattoos, piercing, belly button jewelry, thongs, and too much cleavage.

Relationships with Students

1. Leave the door open or make sure there is another adult present when you are meeting with only one student.
2. Maintain personal boundaries. Make sure you know what the appropriate personal boundaries are.
3. Don’t be affectionate. For example, don’t hold hands when working with younger students.
4. Be aware of the importance of using appropriate language around students. Avoid excessive slang, for example.
5. When you are directed to develop an “inclusive classroom community,” make sure you know your school’s definition of inclusiveness.
6. Show respect for each student as an individual. Recognize and know each child’s strengths and communicate those strengths to him or her as well as to other students.
7. Be friendly--not a friend.
8. Don’t talk about students in the faculty room. The student’s mother, father, aunt, uncle, sister, cousin, neighbor may be a sub.

Noise Levels

1. Raising your voice does not always quiet their voices.
2. Don’t yell at students.
3. Some buildings have expectations for whether the door should be open or shut in class. Find out.
4. Make sure you know the expectations for line walking at your school.
5. Always consider how your class’s volume affects your neighbors.
6. Are there system wide signals in place for controlling noise levels?
7. Be careful about “teaching in the hallways” if it is too loud or too long.
8. Have a signal to get kids quiet.
9. Noise in a classroom does not always mean that students are off task and not learning. Students should know the goals and boundaries of noisy assignments.
10. Joy can be noisy!

Technology and Media Concerns

1. Is there an enforced policy for media or technology use in your school?
2. Check ahead that the technology equipment you want to use is working.
3. Be sure to know the answer to this question: “Who can help me?”
4. You will need a Plan B when working with technology or media.
5. Know if videos are allowed as a “reward” or “celebration” before you use them.
6. Find out how to back up your data in case of hard drive failure.
7. What is the acceptable or appropriate use of the Internet at your school?
8. Sharpen your email etiquette and use it. Be sure to learn what’s appropriate and what is not.
9. Never, never, never trust technology. ALWAYS have a backup plan.
10. When an LCD projector breaks down in the middle of class, know who to call.
11. Technology can be a powerful student motivator.

Relationships with Local Community Members

1. Special lessons are not necessary for special visitors.
2. Include parents as part of your school/classroom community.
3. Check with your principal before inviting a community member to visit your class.
4. Find out if there is a policy for classroom volunteers.
5. Be aware--especially in a small town--how news spreads and how as a teacher, your public conduct may be scrutinized and discussed.
6. Dress appropriately when shopping at local grocery stores.

Pacing Instruction

1. Over plan.
2. Keep a lesson moving even when all students are finished.
3. Work with other teachers to maintain the same pace of instruction when appropriate.
4. Honor the schedules of other teachers. Pick up or drop off students on time.
5. You have to teach bell to bell.
6. Don’t add an activity (such as a video) that isn’t directly related to the lesson or standards just because you think it is fun.
7. Know your next steps. Where is the lesson heading?
8. The curriculum is the tool. The standards are the goal.

Class Time Management

1. Have bell work assignments for secondary classrooms.
2. Avoid “down” time. Plan for transitions.
3. Teach procedures for getting materials.
4. Be a warm demander--not your students’ best friend.
5. Be consistent with your classroom management. Rehearse procedures as needed.
6. Plan a closure activity.
7. Don’t let students crowd by the door during the last few minutes of class.
8. The best classroom management plan is a good lesson plan.
9. Don’t allow students to pick their own seats or move to a seat that is empty. (They will want to sit with their friends.)
10. Don’t be the students’ friend.
11. Know your expectations. What would you want your classroom to look like and sound like?
12. You excuse the students, not the bell.
13. Allow students enough time to prepare to leave. Value their time.

Grading Practices

1. Not the bell curve!
2. Don’t have students grade each others’ papers.
3. Don’t call out grades.
4. Don’t fail a student based on homework or work completion.
5. Candidates for retention should be discussed with the principal.
6. Grade level teams should communicate about where they are in the curriculum and what they are doing. Stay in touch with colleagues.
7. Don’t sit at your desk and grade or input grades when you should be teaching or walking around the room.
8. Don’t rely solely on an electric grade program. Keep a hardcopy print out just in case.

Appropriate Classroom Rules

1. Keep to a few rules.
2. Make sure your rules are observable and specific so you can follow through.
3. Unless there is an emergency, call parents before you send a student to the office.
4. Several steps should be taken before sending a student to the office.
5. Use a behavior plan for individual students.
6. Manage your own class. Don’t send everyone to the office.
7. Be sure that your rules don’t conflict with schoolwide rules.
8. Don’t have private practice rules--ones that are only for individual students and not for the good of the entire class.
9. Know what your colleagues have for rules.
10. Practice procedures.

Holidays and Other Challenging Times of the Year

1. Be aware of the policies for showing videos at these times. Some teachers may show movies even though it is against the rules.
2. Be aware that some teachers may have parties even though it is against the rules.
3. Use the terms “Winter Break” and “Spring Break” instead of “Christmas” and “Easter.”
4. Be careful about the musical choices in your classroom during holidays.
5. Find out your school’s policy for wearing costumes at Halloween.
6. On challenging days such as testing days, maintain a calm environment.
7. Learn how to handle students whose religious beliefs exempt them from participation in holiday-related activities. Plan alternate activities and projects.
8. Know the population you serve and learn about their holidays.
9. Know if administrators are likely to drop in to observe during the few days before or after a holiday. Some do.

General School Culture

1. Respect your colleagues’ time. Be careful not to waste staff meeting time with your personal concerns.
2. Don’t require things to be put into print if you can access the information electronically.
3. Don’t socialize with students outside of the school day.
4. Don’t become too familiar with the families of your students.
5. What’s the process of choosing adjunct duties? What is the pecking order that will be followed?
6. Don’t be rude to the cafeteria staff.
7. Celebrate everyone’s successes.
8. Read email and bulletins and respond promptly.
9. Don’t talk about other staff members in the lunch room. You will not be seen as trustworthy.

Open House/Back to School Night

1. Never spend time talking with individual parents.
2. Do not go to dinner and have a glass of wine (or garlic!) before open house or back to school night.
3. Do speak in generalities about courses and requirements.
4. Let parents know that the syllabus is a plan. There may need to be changes as the year progresses.
5. Don’t volunteer the information that parents can request an alternate selection if they object to the one being taught.
6. Dress professionally. No shorts, flip flops, low blouses, etc.
7. Provide parents with an agenda as a guide for the evening.
8. Have parent signup sheets for conferences or volunteer duties, etc.
9. Think about how you will relay information to parents who are unable to attend.
10. Send out reminder notices the day before.
11. Document for parent contacts.
12. Provide “comment or question” card available and have parents fill this out. Their concerns can then be addressed at a later date.

Community Culture

1. Involve parents in the classroom. (Have them come and share their culture.)
2. Get to know your population and understand their culture.
3. Understand that “Spirit Week” will disrupt learning and “suck it up!”
4. Because different ethnic populations will not be present in class during their celebrations, don’t schedule tests.
5. Translate all correspondence.
6. Be sensitive to Lent practices--no meat on Fridays.
7. During Ramadan, students fast for a month and may be tired and weak.
8. Different cultures have different hygiene practices. Don’t make fun of it or light of it.
9. Learn the cultural traditions of your students and consider them when giving examples.

Questions and Class Discussions

1. Stay away from controversial issues or get them cleared by your principal.
2. Be inclusive--not overlooking anyone.
3. Don’t put kids on the spot by calling them out.
4. Develop different techniques to choose participants.
5. Keep conversations G-rated. Too personal = trouble.
6. Find out if there are prohibited topics.
7. Don’t play, “What’s the Teacher Thinking?”
8. Know the rules pertaining to guest speakers.

Parent Contacts

1. Document this data! Document this data!
2. First impressions count. Call early in the year! Call for both positive and negative reasons. Build those relationships early.
3. Make frequent contacts. Keep communication open.
4. Consider individual situations--who’s at risk not one response fits all.
5. View parents are your best resource in terms of getting to know your kids.
6. Know that parents want the best for their kids, even if the child is not coming to school.
7. Know the communication issues related to El students and their families.
8. Issue open invitations for parents and guardians to visit your classroom.
9. Don’t use teacher-ology, acronyms, and slang.

Emergencies

1. Make sure your frequently update the attendance lists in your emergency folder.
2. Memorize your district’s emergency codes.
3. Make sure you have a list of emergency numbers near your classroom phone.
4. Know how your school practices particular procedures. What are you to take with you?
5. Make sure you can identify an emergency.
6. Have a way to cover windows.
7. Know your school’s lock-down codes.
8. Know who locks the doors.
9. Have procedures in place for subs.

Photocopying

1. Make sure you are aware of the number of photocopies you can make.
2. If the person at your school who is responsible for making copies is not available, how do you get copies made?
3. Pay attention to copyright laws.
4. Either clear the jam or notify someone who can.

Discipline Referrals

1. You need to have your own consequences for referrals.
2. Principals do not want referrals because they lead to write ups. The hidden rule is principals do not want write ups because they lead to suspensions and principals are told not to suspend because it leads to a low attendance count.
3. Parents should not be blindsided. If you have concerns, communicate with them early.
4. If you have too many, it is viewed as a teacher’s lack of management skills.
5. Students may want a referral to avoid a class.
6. Some students use referrals for attention.
7. Know your principal’s preferences before sending students to the office for discipline issues.

Relationships with Colleagues

1. Make the school secretary and the custodians your best friends.
2. Don’t get caught up with the gossip crowd.
3. Treat each other like family. It is okay to disagree behind closed doors, but support each other publicly.
4. Don’t challenge the principal.
5. Share what you have. Lend to others.
6. Know when and how to confront your principal about changing a policy.
7. Not EVERYONE wants honest disagreement.
8. Know how to share equipment among teachers--where does the equipment live, how long can you have it, how do you request it from others?
9. Support your colleagues and their decisions in front of students. If students say rude things about your fellow teachers, stop them in their tracks.

Recordkeeping and Paperwork

1. Grades are private. Students should not view each others’ grades.
2. Parents should not view or talk about other students’ grades.
3. Find out your school’s policy on whether all assignments are to be graded or not.
4. Using a gradebook program is highly encouraged.
5. Hide all student names when sharing information with a student or with parents during a conference.
6. Confidentiality is essential.
7. If you are late with your paperwork, other teachers will HATE you for slowing up the process and wasting their time.
8. Understand completely what the grading scale means.
9. Strive for consistency in grading student work.

Setting Up a Classroom

1. Talk with a supervisor about what needs to be permanently posted in your classroom.
2. Who do you talk to when you need additional furniture?
3. Who do you call when something needs to be fixed?
4. Are you allowed to have personal items--coffee pot, microwave, and refrigerator?
5. Who cleans student desks? Teachers? Students? Custodians?
6. Do you have to supplement supplies and equipment with your own money?
7. If you borrow, ask first and then return the item intact.
8. Find out what is not allowed or a fire hazard.
9. Keep the custodians happy.
10. Rehang items that are falling. Keep the room tidy.

Attendance at School Events

1. How many after school events do you need to attend?
2. Do all teachers need to attend “fun” school events such as a walk-a-thon or carnival?
3. During after school events, what behavior is expected of teachers?
4. Can teachers show up to after school events after having had a drink?
5. What is appropriate dress for a school event?
6. Be there before the kids get there.
7. If you are expected to attend, be there or be sure to speak to an administrator.

Relationships with Supervisors

1. Don’t complain unless you have a solution.
2. Always be on time for all meetings.
3. Share any notes you send home with your principal before you send them.
4. Observe the relationships between administrators and other staff members. Formal? Informal? How do they address each other? What is appropriate for you?
5. Who do you talk to if there is a problem? For example, you should not go straight to the superintendent.
6. What is the procedure if you have an appointment with an administrator and that person does not show up?

Relationships with the Families of Students

1. Don’t email something to a parent that you would not want forwarded to the principal.
2. Speak positively about the child before you voice a concern.
3. Don’t always refer to families as “your mom and dad.” Many students are raised by grandparents or guardians.
4. Be careful not to accept free things from students who work (free fries, for example.)
5. Should you be social friends with the families of your students?
6. Whatever you send home needs to be accurate and spelled correctly.
7. Remember to state to parents, “working as a team to help your child.”
8. Try weekly newsletters.
9. Be available to parents, even if it is an unscheduled appointment.
10. Make positive home contacts, especially after a negative one.

Professional Correspondence

1. Do not email “all.” Don’t flood people’s mailboxes. Don’t use “reply all.”
2. Don’t use email or staff mailboxes for political information or stuff you want to sell.
3. Only one subject per email.
4. Be careful when using emails for discussions, especially when referring to a student.
5. Don’t use a child’s name in an email.
6. Avoid forwarding emails. You may send it to someone you did not mean to.
7. Know who has access to your email.
8. Assume all people have access to a student’s permanent records.
9. Know when to call and when to email.