Here's a scenario I'd bet most of you recognize:
It's the start of the school year.
A teacher posts her classroom rules on the wall.
Rule #3: No phones during class.
She explains it on the first day. Students nod. Everything seems fine.
By week three?
She's having the same argument every other day. "But I was just checking the time." "It was an emergency." "I wasn't even on it that long."
And now she's exhausted, students are resentful, and she's spending more energy enforcing the rule than she is teaching.
Sound familiar?
Here’s my take:
The rule isn't the problem. The absence of the value behind it is.
There's a world of difference between a teacher saying "No phones in class" and a teacher saying "In this room, we respect each other's learning environment."
The first is a rule. It's external. It's imposed. And the moment a student finds a loophole — or a reason why their situation is the exception — the rule falls apart.
The second is a value. It's internal. It's shared. And when students genuinely own it, the phone policy isn't something the teacher has to enforce. It becomes something the class holds together.
It moves from “This is what I (the enforcer) want you to do” to
This is what “we do here”
That's the shift I want to talk about today.
What's Really Happening When Rules Fail
When I work with school leaders and their teams, one of the first things I notice is how much energy is being spent downstream — managing consequences, having repetitive conversations, addressing the same behaviors week after week.
That's exhausting. And it's usually a signal that something is missing upstream.
Rules, by design, are reactive. They anticipate misbehavior.
And when the implicit message students receive is "We're starting from the assumption that you'll do the wrong thing," they often live down to that expectation.
Values, on the other hand, are aspirational.
They say: "Here's who we are. Here's what we believe. Here's the kind of place we're building together."
They invite students into something bigger than compliance.
They invite students into the “common-unity” of community
When a student understands why the phone thing matters — not because it's a rule, but because every person in that room deserves to learn without distraction, because we take each other's time seriously, because this is what mutual respect looks like in practice, because we honor the sacred parlors of learning, because we want to foster community — the conversation completely changes.
Moving Teachers from Rule-Making to Value-Setting
So how do you actually help teachers make this shift?
Here's how I think about it.
Start with the "why" conversation. When teachers are designing their classroom expectations, ask them: "What do you want students to feel and believe in this space? What values do you want to be true here?"
Help them name the values first — respect, belonging, shared responsibility, intellectual courage — and then let the rules flow from there.
A rule becomes a natural consequence of a shared value, not an arbitrary decree handed down from above.
Model it in your own leadership. Think about the policies and expectations you communicate to your staff.
Are they framed as rules — things people must do because you said so — or are they rooted in values your team actually believes in? Staff meetings that feel like compliance check-ins drain culture. Conversations rooted in shared purpose build it.
If you want your teachers to lead with values, they need to experience what that feels like first.
Give teachers the language. A lot of teachers want to move in this direction but don't know how to talk about it.
Help them practice reframing.
"No talking while I'm talking" becomes "We give each other our full attention because every voice here matters." "Be in your seat when the bell rings" becomes "We honor each other's time — and that starts with showing up ready."
The idea isn't to sugarcoat expectations. It's to root them in something students can actually internalize and own.
Revisit the values when things break down. Here's a practical one: when a conflict arises, instead of jumping to the rule that was broken, start by asking, "What value did we lose sight of in that moment?"
This isn't soft.
It's actually more rigorous, because it asks students (and teachers) to engage at a deeper level — not just "what did you do wrong" but "who do we want to be, and how do we get back there?"
A Quick Story From My Own Experience
The school I lead has a “no phone/electronics” policy that states that students are not to have any electronics in their possession or in their usage unless it is specifically for a class project
We even have a “phone hotel” where students check their phones in at the start of the day. We lock it up and then give them their phones at the end of the day.
Here is the exact wording of the policy from our Handbook:
Value: Avoid distractions and embrace reverence
Because the learning space is a sacred space, we strive extraordinarily hard to create an environment where students can do their best thinking. To this end, we ask that students leave their smartphone, tablet, or laptop computer devices at home unless instructed otherwise by a professor. Teens, on average, spend approximately 7 ½ hours a day consuming “entertainment media.” This includes TV, Internet surfing, social media, and video games. Odyssey wants to create a learning environment where students can actually sit and be—with themselves, with their thoughts, with their peers, with their Mentors, and with the material—in order to promote personal growth, intellectual depth, and civic responsibility. Many teens in this generation lack the proper communication skills necessary to cultivate deep and valuable relationships in their lives. We believe that the magic of an Odyssey classroom occurs when students are deeply engaged with each other, the material, and their own curiosity; therefore, we desire to limit any outside distraction that might hinder this from happening. To this end, Odyssey employs a no cell-phone, tablet, laptop, or smart device during the school day, unless authorized by school personnel (meaning these devices are only to be used by express permission and authority of the school). If you must send your student with such a device, their Mentor will take it up at the beginning of the day and will return it once the Odyssey day is over. If you need to get in touch with your student, please feel free to call or text your Mentor, or the general Odyssey contact information. Odyssey faculty reserves the right to introduce such devices, at their discretion, where it may benefit, and not hinder, the learning environment. The School is not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged electronic devices brought to school.
Giving this policy this depth of language invites students and families to see the rule more as what we say YES to—community, sacred learning space, time with friends, distraction free environment, etc.—than what we say NO to (the electronics)
Now…we still have students who try to keep their phones or tell us they left them at home, but the vast majority (easily 90%) on every given day put their phones in the hotel and choose community
We still fight some battles on this front, but we always bring students back to the deeper values that they chose to buy into when they decided to come to this school
It’s not foolproof, but it helps everyone honor what we believe matters most: the flourishing of persons in community
For You This Week
I want to leave you with one practical move you can make right now.
In your next one-on-one or team meeting, try this:
Ask your teachers to look at their top three classroom rules and articulate the value underneath each one.
What does each rule protect? What does it honor? Why does it matter?
If they struggle — and some will — that's valuable information. It means the rule was adopted without the belief behind it. And that's where your work as a leader lives.
Rules keep the peace. Values build the culture.
And culture is the thing that outlasts you, outlasts the school year, and outlasts any policy document you'll ever write.
That's what I want for your school. That's what I want for your teachers.
That's what your students are waiting for — whether they know it or not.
Want to Go Deeper?
This is exactly the kind of work I love doing alongside school leaders — helping you move from reactive management to intentional, values-driven culture-building.
Whether you're looking for a professional development workshop for your staff, one-on-one coaching to sharpen your leadership practice, or a deeper dive into building culture from the inside out, I'd love to be a resource for you.
Until next time — keep leading with intention.
Scott
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