Class Rules

I have found that the most essential classroom rule for me is clean up. If I don't keep an eye on my students, they will slip scraps under things just so they don't have to walk them to the trash can. I am currently doing a lesson on batik and bookmaking and I had to lay down serious ground rules for how to treat a classroom with the materials that we are using. Because they are eighth graders, I had originally assumed that they would know how to do this. Everyday when I cue that it is time for clean up, I go over exactly what needs to be cleaned up and how. If my students don't clean up properly as they are expected to in the art room, I spend twice the amount of time cleaning up after them, cutting into my prep periods for other classes. I find that with sixth grade, they know to clean up and take a seat until things are checked and they are dismissed from class. With my seventh graders, they have a little more tendency to not want to stop working and to continue until they run out of time to clean up and are eager to go to their next class. Yet, when I get on them to clean up they do and they will stay in the classroom, near their tables. My eighth graders are the hardest to get to clean up. Suddenly at the end of class I have a new student named "somebody" and they always get blamed when no one wants to claim a mess.
As far as other rules in the class go, my students get for the most part and I don't have any huge issue with any of them. They know that when I'm waiting quietly at the front of the class that I won't tell them to quiet down, they need to do it on their own. At first I would try to speak over them but I have found that it works better if they remind each other to be quiet when they see me waiting. They quiet down quicker this way. We have discussed this before, so they know to quiet down quickly. When explaining rules to them in the beginning of the year, I told them that I am there to teach them, and it is their job to come to class ready to work. If they come to class noisy they are wasting their own time because the lesson will not begin until they have settled down. They are eager to get to work on their projects so this is never really an issue.

I don't expect the students to be completely quiet during art class as long as they are working. We have an understanding that as long as they are getting the work done that they need to in class, they can talk quietly amongst their tables. However, when I am helping students throughout the classroom, I should not be able to hear any one discussion. If I do, I tell them that I'm hearing too much talking for the amount of work that needs to be done by our set deadline. I also give them mini deadlines to keep them on track so I often refer to these.

To me however, as stated before, cleaning up after themselves is the number one issue and rule in my class. I can handle chatter, I can handle letting them quiet themselves down, I can come in early and stay late to help any student with work they need help on.... any other rule I don't necessary find hard for students to follow. But when it comes to cleaning up, that it the first thing I enforce everyday in the art room. I suppose that the more experience I get with working in the art room the better it will get. Expectations of my classroom will be passed down and I feel like right now as the student teacher I'm being tested a little bit. But if there is one rule that needs to be in the art room it is accountability for your own mess.