2008

Rules for Teachers

· Alec Couros

Here are some rules for teachers from the beginning of the 20th century.

🖼️ “Rules for Teachers 1” is no longer online (try the archived copy)

It’s interesting to see how clearly the social expectations for women were laid out in the form of explicit rules. Thankfully, times have changed, although we always have more work to do. It would be interesting to pose rules like this with that of our contemporary schools, rules that are not always made so apparent.

See also.

2 comments

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Lisa Linn/Clare Lane

Too funny -except I believe this was the norm and may have originated with whatever served as a federal Borad of Ed. at the time. I saw the same sign in the one room schoolhouse in Old Town San Diego several years ago.

Ranea Wright

Being a modern, technically savvy teacher, these rules seem amusing and antiquated. Still, when one compares the conduct of students in the early 20th century with that of students today, it seems that perhaps we have lost something more valuable than these rules – what the teacher represented to their students, how the teacher presented themselves and attended to the idea that they were role models for their students, and that in education of the early 20th century students and teachers were held to higher standards of conduct, achievement, and development of character.