Teaching As More Than Rule Keeping

Growing up, my family loved playing games. We played with seriousness and delight.

In our basement playroom, there were cards, ping pong, knock hockey, and many other board games. Our yard was regularly used for croquet, horseshoes, badminton, and volleyball. When enough family gathered, there were glorious, unruly games of tag.

I assumed every family played games the way we did. 

Then some of my older cousins came to visit.

Somewhere along the way my brother and I had quietly rewritten the rules of Monopoly. Whenever someone paid money to the bank—taxes, fees, penalties—that money was tucked underneath the Free Parking space. Whoever landed there collected the whole pile. Free Parking was transformed from an uneventful square into a moment of possibility, a financial windfall.

Our cousins were scandalized.

"You can't do that."

"Those aren't the rules."

"Get the instructions."

They wanted the official rulebook. They wanted Parker Brothers to settle the argument.

My brother and I had no interest in consulting the rulebook.

"It's our board," we insisted. "Our house. Our rules."

What began as a disagreement about Monopoly quickly became a struggle over authority. Voices rose. Feelings swelled. Nobody was changing anybody's mind. Somewhere in the middle of our family constitutional crisis, my mother appeared at the doorway and announced that ice cream and cake were being served in the kitchen. Looking back, I suspect she was rescuing us all.

The game ended.

The argument did not.

Years later I realized that we had not really been arguing about Monopoly.

We were arguing about power.

Who gets to make the rules?

Who decides when rules can bend?

Who benefits when they do?

Who pays when they don't?

Rules are never neutral.

Every rule privileges someone. Every rule protects something. Every rule imagines an outcome worth preserving. Rules create order, certainly. They also distribute power.

Breaking rules carries consequences. Punishment. Exclusion. Suspicion. Labels. Sometimes criminalization. Sometimes silence.

Teachers know this. 

Every syllabus is a declaration of values. Every classroom policy tells students something about what matters here. Every deadline, attendance policy, grading rubric, participation expectation, and late-work penalty announces not only how learning will happen but also who has the authority to define learning.

When do I enforce the rules? When do I quietly overlook them? For whom? What assumptions shape those teaching decisions?

Which students receive grace because they remind me of myself? Which students receive rigidity because they challenge my expectations? What conflict am I avoiding when I pretend consistency is the same thing as justice?

These are not administrative questions.

They are the moral questions of pedagogy. 

***

Ariel was an M.Div. student.

He worked full time as the executive director of a denominational agency while carrying a full graduate course load. He came to class prepared. He asked thoughtful questions. He lingered after class to continue conversations. By mid-semester he had completed two major writing assignments, and both were excellent. Ariel was an exemplary student. 

After class one afternoon he followed me to my office.

I set my briefcase on my desk. Ariel settled onto the couch while I sat across from him. We talked casually about the day's discussion. But something in his posture told me he had come for more than this debriefing conversation.

Finally, after taking a long breath, he smiled.

"I have a proposition."

I was curious.

"Tell me."

He began carefully, "I've done well on the first two assignments."

I nodded.

"I'm keeping up with the reading. I'm learning a great deal."

Still, I waited.

He took an anticipatory breath. So did I.

"I'd like to skip the last two papers."

I felt my eyebrow raise and my lips purse. I folded my arms over my chest. 

"Skip them?"

"Yes."

There was no arrogance in his voice. No manipulation. No entitlement. Only a tired honesty from someone trying to make impossible responsibilities fit inside twenty-four-hour days and this academic semester.

"I've demonstrated that I'm doing the work," he continued. "I'd like to keep learning without writing two more essays."

I admired his audacity. Most students spend energy negotiating for higher grades. Ariel was negotiating for a different way to demonstrate learning.

I uncrossed by arms and leaned forward. 

"We have a syllabus," I said gingerly. "It's our agreement. How do I assign a final grade if you don't complete the remaining assignments?"

Without hesitation he answered, "I'll continue being an A student. You give me an A." 

I snickered. "So, you've come to negotiate?"

"If I have to."

"I need to think."

That answer surprised him.

It surprised me too.

I wasn't ready to say, yes. But I wasn't ready to say, no. I am the girl who put money on Free Parking.

We agreed to have lunch two days later.

***

By Thursday I had a counterproposal. I laid it before him over sandwiches in the campus café.

"You may skip the remaining essays." His eyes brightened. "...if..." His smile disappeared. "...you tutor the students who are struggling."

Silence, but he did not look away. 

I continued, "One of the deepest ways to learn is to teach. If you help your classmates wrestle with the ideas in the course, you'll understand them even more deeply."

He considered it. He was thinking while listening. Weighing his options.

"How many students?"

"Before we count students," I said, "there's one more condition."

He grimaced.

I chuckled.

"Just hear me out."

"There are three other students earning similarly high grades. If I make this arrangement with you, I must offer the same opportunity to them. All four of you become tutors. If everyone agrees, we have a deal. If even one person declines, everyone writes the remaining papers."

His response was immediate.

"That's not fair."

I shrugged my shoulders the way you do when you are done talking. 

"What if they prefer writing essays?"

"Then," I replied gently, "you'll have to persuade them."

Ariel turned his attention to his turkey sandwich and chips—still thinking.

We talked about other things. I enjoyed our conversation. 

Walking back across campus, he finally spoke.

"Okay."

A pause.

"If I organize the tutors...the essays disappear?"

"Yes."

Within days Ariel had recruited the other three students.

Not one of them wanted to write two additional papers.

Together Ariel and I organized tutoring sessions throughout the remainder of the semester. Students who wanted help received it. Conversations multiplied. Learning deepened. The strongest students discovered that explaining difficult ideas required even greater mastery than writing about them.

By semester's end, the lowest grade in the course was an A-minus.

The syllabus had not collapsed.

Learning had expanded.

***

That semester Ariel taught me something I have carried ever since.

Rules matter.

Justice matters more.

The goal of teaching has never been perfect compliance.

The goal is transformation.

Sometimes the deepest integrity lies not in protecting every rule exactly as it was written, but in asking whether the rule is still serving the learning it was created to protect.

The best teachers are not simply rule keepers.

We are stewards of learning.

That stewardship requires flexibility, discernment, humility, and imagination. It requires us to know the difference between a rule that safeguards community and a rule that merely preserves our comfort. It asks us to remember that equity is rarely achieved by treating everyone exactly the same. Equity grows when every student has a meaningful opportunity to flourish.

Perhaps the real question is not whether students should follow our rules.

Perhaps the deeper question is whether our rules are worthy of the students who entrust us with their learning.

Thank you, Ariel. 

Reflection Questions

1. Which classroom rule do you enforce most consistently and with the expectation of uniformity? What fear, hope, or value lives beneath that rule?
2. Recall a time when you bent a rule for a student. What informed your decision, and would you make the same decision for every student?
3. Imagine your students were invited to rewrite one policy in your syllabus. Which policy would they change first? What might their proposal teach you about your classroom?
4. Where have you mistaken consistency for justice? Where has flexibility created deeper learning than compliance ever could?
5. If your syllabus were read as a theological, ethical, or moral document, what would it reveal about your understanding of authority, grace, accountability, and community?