The class writes them. The class keeps them.

On the first day of school, students write what they expect of each other on sticky notes. The teacher groups them and names the categories with the class. Those categories are the Anchor Agreements. Everyone signs them, the teacher included. The signed Agreements go up on chart paper and stay on the wall all year.

They are written in the positive. No "don't," no "can't," no "no." What we want, not what we are avoiding. That takes redirecting, because children arrive already trained the other way.

Classes tend to land in the same places: self-discipline, respect, responsibility, honesty, compassion for all beings, care for our space. Children arrive already trained on most of these. Self-discipline is the exception. Usually nobody has offered them that power, and it is usually the one that has to be introduced.

Agreements get added to, not torn up. Never completely rewritten. That is what keeps the integrity of the thing they signed and the respect of everyone who signed it.

Every morning a student leads the class in reciting the Agreements, pointer in hand. Later in the year, when a child drifts, the teacher does not say a word. She looks at the child, then looks at the Agreements on the wall. The child self-corrects. Nothing is interrupted and no one is named in front of the room.