I once had a principal whose core beginning-of-the-year discipline strategy was insisting, in August meetings, that the first day of any school year should be dominated by reading, illustrating, discussing and reinforcing classroom rules. All staff members had to turn in copies of their classroom rules, before the first day, for his files. We were directed to hammer on the rules every minute of every hour for the full day. Skip the exciting plans for learning. It was all rules, all the time.
Eventually, it seemed imperative to him that we should all be using the same rules. The same number of bathroom passes per term. The same punishments for forgetting a pencil. The identical set of steps in dealing with misbehavior–verbal / written warnings, call to parent, detention, suspension, yada yada. He had lots of supporters for this idea, most of whom thought that kids were getting away with murder in other teachers’ rooms. Unlike their own silent, straight-row paragons of classroom uniformity.