Education for Positive Peace

At the beginning of the school year or term, teachers at Umubano Academy establish a set of rules and expectations with their learners. This is a collaborative process, led by the teacher, where the whole class agrees on the rules and expectations they think should be applied. After agreeing upon the class rules and expectations, these are displayed on a wall chart in the classroom. Both the teacher and learners sign their names under the agreed rules and expectations, forming a Classroom Contract. This encourages learners to take personal responsibility in the classroom and it means that everybody knows what is expected of them. 

Reflection

Take a few moments to think about how the school year started when you were at school. Did your teacher run through rules and routines with you? Did you feel involved in the process? How do you normally start the year with a new class in your current role as a teacher? How do class rules get established? Who is responsible for the rules? Are you happy with the way this works or would you like to try to do some things differently? Did you learn to do anything different regarding establishing the rules with learners, as part of your teacher training (TTC or other training)?

Sometimes the teacher might not agree with the ideas that learners suggest. For example, they might suggest a negative rule. We can remind learners that we want to be positive and focus on what to do in class, not what not to do. For example, If a learner suggests the rule, “Don't run in the classroom,” we can ask them to think of a positive rule that means the same thing e.g “Always walk in the classroom.”

Here are two photos of the classroom contracts at Umubano Academy. You will see that nursery learners stamped their handprints to sign the contract, as they are not yet able to write their names. Another idea with nursery learners would be to have pictures to represent each of the rules, to help learners understand and remember what they mean.