Turkey Baster
Something I heard at PCMI, credited to Benjamin Walker, is “you don’t build culture with a firehose, you build it with a turkey baster.” Culture isn’t something that’s established all at once or through the brilliance of one great activity, it’s the sum of all the little things that make a class unique. Planning for culture is less about the first day than it is the micro-moves that reinforce classroom norms the second week and halfway through October and the last week in December. Culture is about patience and small choices, day in and day out.
Breaking the Didactic Contract
Also at PCMI, Peter Liljedahl spoke about the non-negotiated norms of classrooms everywhere. Students come in, sit down, face front. Students write in their notebooks what is written on the board. Students complete work on pieces of paper put in front of them. In exchange, teachers don’t require students to think very hard or do any math they have not been shown how to do. These norms are so entrenched that they need to be broken in radical ways, beginning at the start of the first class, to create a classroom where students are willing to think.
I see a compelling argument from each perspective, and I’m not sure how to reconcile them.
Five Twelve Thirteen 
Why does it have to be one or the other? The only way to build norms and a class culture is do authentically model and reinforce them the first day and every day that follows.
That makes sense. How do you decide what to emphasize on the first day, and what can wait until later in the year?
Speaking entirely personally, I think Benjamin is correct and Peter is not.
Are there norms that you wish you could change in your classroom but haven’t been able to?
Of course, but I think that’s because (1) I am not a teaching hero and I fail often and (2) some norms are very deep.
I will say that I am very adverse to conflicting with student norms, in precisely the same way that I don’t focus on misconceptions or what students are lacking in their knowledge. I like to build on what they expect from school and class, and extend it.
So, for instance, when a kid asks if their answer is correct in a moment when I’m not ready to answer them, I’m not likely to make a big deal about refusing to answer them. Some teachers say that they do that, in the name of norms. But I will, over time, try to take that eagerness to check correctness and help the student develop it into different kinds of eagerness — an eagerness to explain oneself to others, maybe.
Interesting! I’m intrigued by that example because I think many teachers would feel strongly on both sides there.
why are you very adverse to conflicting with student norms?