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Every year, or even every semester, whenever I鈥檝e walked into a classroom鈥攚hether in September or during a leave replacement in February鈥攃ommunity agreements have followed me. Community agreements differ from rules in that there鈥檚 no arbitrary expectation, no attitude of one size fits all. They aren鈥檛 prescriptive lists of behaviors I give students, with punishments for noncompliance.

Rules that are written before students arrive, in my experience, simply don鈥檛 work. How can I expect things from people I don鈥檛 know? How can the students understand what to expect if they don鈥檛 know me? These questions are the very ones that get us started on our journey. My students and I write the agreements together and amend them as necessary throughout our time together, regularly reflecting on them using our personal and collective values.

The process of building community agreements communicates to students that even if we鈥檝e just met, I trust them to know themselves best鈥攁s learners, as people, and as participants in the space where we will treat each other with dignity. Community agreements allow students to build a set of expectations for themselves, the students who are there every day, and hold each other accountable for those expectations as they get to know each other better.

It鈥檚 human nature, especially to a teenager, to repudiate fakeness. Most teens value transparency and clarity. Community agreements give students the means to design the experience they hope to have, and to show up and maintain those expectations for themselves and each other every day as an act of integrity.

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The first step when we cultivate a community agreement is a values assessment. I ask students to choose, from a list, the five most important things in their life鈥攖hese are values like loyalty, friendship, respect, and knowledge, as well as family. They then rank these from one (most important) to five (least important) and write out reflections on a series of questions.

These questions include the following:聽

• Which value is the number one most important in your life? Tell us its origin story. Who taught you this value? Why does it matter to you?聽
• How have your values changed over time?聽
• How do you plan to live and act out this value in our classroom?

Allowing students to assess, reflect on, and write about their values provides so much richness and depth to our introduction. Through these prompts, they find out more about who they are and why they are, and as the teacher and audience for their writing, so do I.

Defining Respect

When I ask students to reflect on their values, they usually choose respect as being the most important to them, or they at least rank it in their top five. Before I add it to our agreement or ask them to make statements that turn their choice into an agreement, I ask them to tell me what it means. Respect is a word that can be amorphous when we use it or demand it from others, especially in the educational realm, where it often comes with a power differential: It鈥檚 expected by those with more power and given聽by those with less power. To prevent power differentials from taking over the community building in my own classroom, I task students with a 鈥減ause and reflect鈥� activity centered on respect.

They dialogue in small groups, asking and answering the following questions:

• What does respect look, feel, or sound like?聽
• What does disrespect look, feel, or sound like?聽
• How is respect defined by different cultures or age groups? What about your own culture or age group?聽

These are some of the examples that students have come up with to create imagery of respect in action: using kind words, giving everyone鈥檚 opinions space, prioritizing impact over intention, not interrupting, and not embarrassing people if they make mistakes. After we brainstorm this list, we add these examples to our draft document.

Teaching Integrity

The foremost goal behind community agreements is that students feel empowered. Most of the students I work with, when I present them聽with the process of creating community agreements, don鈥檛 know what to do at first. Many express confusion and dismay at being given the power to design their experience.

This reveals to me something I was cautioned about in teacher education. Paulo Freire critiqued what he called the 鈥渂anking鈥� concept of education鈥攖he idea that teachers 鈥渄eposit鈥� information into students. That is still what many students are used to. But when I ask my students, 鈥淲ho are we as humans, learners, and teachers?,鈥� I clarify that I鈥檓 not the only teacher in the room. Each student has something they can teach, whether it鈥檚 how to change a tire or cook pupusas or write an effective argument.

So much of the community-building process is not about 鈥渁llowing鈥� students to do anything or even about 鈥済iving them a voice.鈥� It鈥檚 entirely about moving over, passing the mic, and holding space while they use the voice they entered the room with on the first day.

Recognizing the Power of 鈥榊et鈥�

Fostering a culture of togetherness and integrity is a balancing act that can sometimes feel like a lot to maintain, but it is doable. Community agreements make it possible to center students鈥� voices. The building of community agreements depends on them, their values, their needs, their strengths, and their constant growth.

Community agreements inherently possess the power of 鈥測et.鈥澛燱hat we鈥檙e聽capable of or have yet to learn, what we haven鈥檛 done yet, what we hope for in the future, are points of power for us as teachers, learners, and community members. The idea of 鈥測et鈥� offers infinite ways for students to guide their own learning and to track the changes in their own learning lives and lives in general over the course of a school year.