Technique 40: Sweat the Details

(Part of chapter 6, Setting and Maintaining High Behavioral Expectations)

Sweat the Details means setting a high standard for everything in your classroom.  The idea is that if you don't accept mediocrity in things like dress and deportment, classroom cleanliness, etc., then you communicate to the students that you don't accept mediocrity in their learning.

My response:

Again, this is not a big issue in my college classroom.  I cannot dictate to them how they dress, and I don't always have control of the state of my classroom.

However, I do try to make sure the classroom is clean.  I try to arrive early and pick up loose papers and trash, put chairs and tables in order, etc.

I think this idea applies more in the details of computer programming that I teach.  If I have the students sweat the details in variable naming, function naming, commenting, and indentation, they get the idea that not only do those details matter, but even more the correctness of the program matters.