When Miguel Ruiz wrote the FOUR AGREEMENTS, he yet again brought value of forming agreements with ourselves on the forefront. As the school year begins through the U.S., educators and students alike are contemplating the upcoming school year. Fall may be a time of reflection and reorganizing us after the hubbub of a summer of chance and vacation.
In successful classrooms, teachers and students are members of your team. Individually and collectively, they ask and answer three basic questions in the team-forming process: “Who am I?” “Who are you currently?” and lastly, “Who shall we be held?” In answering these questions, in building classroom agreements, teachers and students create a firm foundation with the upcoming school year. I believe the most effective agreements are formed with the principles volume of life. This is the exact level that answers the question, “Who do I desire to be?” It is not the particular level that answers, “What am I going to do?” It is the volume of opportunity, not obligation. It is the amount at which I shift from thinking, “I should do such etc.” to “This is undoubtedly an opportunity to function as the mother, daughter, educator, I need to be.”
The four agreements that constitute the foundation for that school year are personal, social, role and goal agreements. The teacher every student in a very class should have a personal agreement that answers the question, “Who do I want to BE?” As they answer that question, they should be remember that they are unable to possibly be everything. They need to limit their lists to a few to five principles they wish to use to measure their success. For example, my top three BEs are wise, generous, and spiritual. The list is utilized to self-evaluate who you were being. The number one life skill is self-evaluation, and responsible self-evaluation measures how being aligns with agreements with self and involves evaluating precisely what is within a person’s control. On a regular basis, you need to ask, “What did I do how to live my principles?”
The second from the agreements, the social agreement, answers the question, “Who do we desire to be when we are together?” After we have each developed an individual agreement, if we are each sure how we should BE, then collectively we should come to consensus on the way we want to treat one another. To form a social agreement, we all need to have a sense of link to everyone else inside the group, and then there must be a modicum of trust amongs group members. In a school, social agreements may typically be summarized as, “We need to be learning, be respectful, assume responsibility and be safe.”
The third kind of agreement, the role agreement, answers the question, “What is my role in establishing us where you want to go?” In our family car, whoever sits inside shotgun seat (front seat, passenger side) plays the role of navigator. This has been our long-standing family agreement. In a classroom, it’s advisable if every one of the adults and students involved inside the room can be during role negotiation. The process of discussion and compromise employed in determining roles lays the groundwork for just a successful school year in which many hazards and obstacles are avoided. Role clarification allows students realize to expect so helping develop a safe-risk environment.
Goal agreements, the fourth and final sort of agreements, infuse district assuring standards with students’ needs for relevance. To develop meaning and relevance in content learning, and also to enhance students’ deal with learning, teachers and students together develop essential questions for each on the major units of study and with the year. All learning is personal and constructivist of course, and essential questions, when they are thoughtfully developed, encourage personal engagement with content. Students who’re engaged and challenged, students who see real value of what they are learning, are more interested in learning and produce fewer distractions from the classroom. Student goal setting tools moves easily toward student led conferencing.