Karen CarneyOne of our traditions at Chicago Friends School is that each classroom makes its own class rules at the beginning of the year. This practice starts with students stating goals for their year, and then discussing what kind of learning and classroom environment they need to reach these goals. After our middle school classroom devised their rules in the fall of 2024, two of them noticed that if they arranged the rules in a particular order, they could spell out the words “Be Kind” with the first letter of each rule. The students rewrote their rules poster so that it did that.
This poster illustrates a few things about how we run our school consistent with Quaker values.
First, our tradition of having the students make classroom rules is deeply rooted in both Community and Equality. By asking students what kind of community they want to work in, we nest the rules in their relationships with each other and not authority. The rules are a community compact and mutual promise rather than an arbitrary set of expectations set by the adult in the classroom.
Second, the class name. Another school tradition is that the middle school gets to pick its own class name – and for 2024-2025 year, the class name was the “Bermuda Triangles.” Our oldest students get a hand in their identity throughout the school.
Finally, BE KIND. We often talk about the Quaker values: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Equality/Equity, Community, Service/Stewardship. But they stem from a deeper underlying belief: that every person has a unique light to bring to the world and that we honor their humanity in that every day. Being kind shows that we see others, value them, and make the world better for them to live in. I’m thrilled that our students distilled that from a set of rules.