EE: Hi, I’m Zaid Naqvi and I’m here with English teacher Derek Lu and today we will be discussing his unorthodox classroom policies ranging from the Mr. Lu Kahoots to the infraction system.

EE: How would you describe the kind of classroom environment that you aim to establish?

DL: I think my goal is to always establish a safe and inclusive environment for all my students in which they can learn openly and ask questions without fear of judgment and to ideally thrive in, not just the field of English, but also just as learners overall.

EE: Could you describe some of the classroom policies and practices that you have that are different from other teachers under classrooms, like the new song every class and different icebreakers?

DL: I love music. I love R & B, hip hop and just pop in general. I always start off every class with a song of the day and that’s a way for me to share the music I love and the artists I love with my students and to create an environment that is more inviting to walk into rather than just one in which there’s dead silence. Another policy that I have is to not give zeros. Four years ago when I started, there was a big push for non-zero grading, meaning that if a student turns in an assignment late or not at all that you shouldn’t give them a zero because it’s really detrimental to their grade mathematically — it’s really hard to recover from a zero. That was actually something I learned in my teacher education program at Stanford too. It was one that I really adopted pretty wholeheartedly. So if a student chooses not to turn in a homework assignment, I make that a learning opportunity for them. As young adults, they have the ability to manage their time. And if they find that a homework assignment’s not worth doing, then they don’t have to. But knowing that the grade consequence is a 50%. Of course, it doesn’t extend to essays or any assessments. So they do still have to turn in all the big writing assignments.

EE: I’ve also heard about different policies in your classroom, such as Kahoots and quizzes as well, which are about you or about different things in the classroom. What would you say is the purpose of those?

DL: I think I intend it as a fun way to engage in learning about me as their teacher. So I share not just songs, but like tidbits about myself and what I’m up to, what I love to do in my free time and stuff of that nature. In the same way as a reading quiz, I guess it’s a check for listening and for understanding, but in a non-academically inclined manner. Kahoots are fun and students love the competition and it’s just to see how much they learn and how much they remember about me, by the end of the year.

EE: When it comes to the infraction system, could you describe what that is and the purpose it has?

DL: I’ve definitely done a lot of thinking and a lot of refining of the infraction system over the years. I think when I first envisioned it, it was a way to tap into students’ competitive nature and to kind of generate a little inter-period rivalry between my classes, between my senior and my freshman classes. The way the infraction system works, in a nutshell, is at the beginning of the year, we create a list of course norms that each student has the ability to contribute to and that we all agree to. And then any violation of the course norms is an infraction. At first, I made it like, every individual breach of the norms was a class infraction, but over the years, I’ve tweaked it because a lot of students found that it was unfair if one person is getting off task or using their phone before we had the no phones policy, that the entire class would be punished for it. That’s when I started tabulating individual infractions and so individual infractions would be for behavior that you engage in that is in violation of the class norms, but that doesn’t involve other people. So if it’s just you who’s off task, that’s an individual infraction for you. Five infractions for the class equals a pop quiz, and then 10 individual infractions for each student equals a 250 word paragraph on a topic of my choice. So that’s the punitive side. The reward side is that at the end of the unit, every period, for both freshmen and seniors, who has the least infractions gets a prize from me and it’s usually in the form of food. So donuts for the class or cupcakes. Something like that as a reward for their good behavior throughout the unit.

EE:I know you touched on this a little bit earlier, but as you’ve grown through your own journey as a teacher, how have these practices
changed?

DL: I think one thing I already talked about is how I differentiated between class infractions and individual infractions. Another change is creating a very clear-cut set of guidelines. I think in previous years, students had the feedback that they weren’t sure what constitutes an infraction. So really clarifying these are our class norms, and any way in which you violate or breach those agreements is an infraction and just really explained to kids why I do it. I think this is something I forgot to mention earlier, but the point of the infraction system is not only to encourage and reward good behavior, but to really emphasize the point that our class community is a community, right? Like, you’re not just responsible for yourself, even though that is very much the Monta Vista mentality, right? Every kid for themselves and you only care about how you’re doing. But I really think we have a responsibility to each other in not only helping each other when we have a question, but really to encourage the kinds of positive behaviors, whether it’s asking questions openly or really being active learners in class. These are habits that really benefit all of us, right? The more people who are contributing to discussion, the more lively the class conversation is. I think that’s another point that I really refined over the years.

EE: Would you say that student reactions ever led you to modify or rethink any of your policies?

DL: Yeah, I think I touched on this already, but making the contours of the infraction policy more transparent, so clarifying what constitutes an infraction, differentiating how the whole class might get an infraction versus just an individual and making it not public. I think in some years, I would write the names of kids on the board, and that was the biggest criticism that I got, because some kids felt like they were being targeted, or they were being publicly shamed, although, there’s also an equal number of students who love the attention and the notoriety that they got them, but I’ve definitely stopped publicizing that. I keep my own private tally of individual infractions now, and the only thing students are able to see is the class infractions.

EE: How do you think students perceive these different policies that you’ve implemented in your classroom?

DL: It’s hard to say. I think some years, there’s a lot of commotion around infractions, other years there aren’t. Like last year, there were no complaints, no trauma. This year, there’s been some grumblings about it. I think, overall, positive because it makes my class interesting and unique. Is it imperative that I give Kahoots about myself? No. But I think it’s really just a way to build personal relationships with students by sharing things about myself, by injecting fun into our class, by creating friendly competition and incentives around learning about me.

EE: That’s all we have for today! Thanks for tuning in.

No Copyright Music by Tatamusic on Pixabay | Used with permission