Rules Have a Price
I just returned from a fantastic training in Colorado Springs called Tools for Teaching presented by Fred Jones. I have read most of the book and believe it to be the right work to raise student achievement. Another great thing about the book is that just like most things in teaching, it can also be applied to parenting. So as you are reading this post, you can look at rules through the lens of a teacher, parent or both 
The price of a rule is defined by two things, 1) the cost of teaching the rule, and 2) the cost of enforcing the rule. Green teachers treat classroom rules as a kind of behavioral wish list. They announce rules without computing the price. More experienced teachers know that rules come with a price.
Teaching rules takes time. It takes as much time as teaching any other lesson complete with anticipatory set, modeling, guided practice and independent practice. If you don’t teach it correctly, they won’t learn it.
Enforcing rules takes more time, and it will always be inconvenient. It requires that you stop whatever you are doing in order to deal with the situation. Before you make a rule, therefore, imagine yourself enforcing it – class period after class period, day after day.
If you make a rule and fail to enforce it, you have just defined your own rules as hot air: Experienced teachers, therefore, understand the rule of rules:
Never make a rule that you are not willing to enforce every time.
If, for example, you ask the class to pay attention while you are speaking, but you fail to deal effectively with side conversations, students know that paying attention is optional. If you ask the class to take turns as they speak, but you occasionally recognize a student who interrupts because he or she has a good idea, students know that they are free to cut each other off during discussion.
Classroom rules are ultimately defined by reality – that is, whatever any student can get away with. So the students just watch. Everything you do is a lesson.
