The classroom is rarely finished when the students arrive. A few labels are still missing, the tape holding up one corner of the bulletin board has already given up, and someone cannot find the pencil sharpener. Three students want the same seat, one child is standing quietly near the door, and the teacher is trying to remember twenty-five names while explaining where the water bottles go.
This is the first week of school.
Teachers carry a lot during those first few days. We are trying to make students feel welcome while also teaching them how to enter the room, move through the hallway, find materials, ask for help, share space, and get through a lesson without the whole thing unravelling. Structure helps. Children need to know what to expect, and teachers need routines that allow a room full of people to learn together.
But underneath every routine is another lesson. Students are learning who gets to make decisions. They are learning what happens when someone asks why. They are noticing whether disagreement is treated as useful information or an early sign of trouble. They are watching what adults do with uncertainty, mistakes, noise, and students who do not immediately fall into line.
Long before students can describe the culture of a classroom, they can feel it.
Classroom Expectations Are Never Just About Behaviour
Most teachers enter September with some expectations already in mind. We know that students cannot shout over one another, grab materials without permission, or leave the room whenever they feel like it. Safety and learning require boundaries. The question is how those boundaries are introduced and what students learn from the process.
I have seen classrooms where the rules are presented as a finished product. The teacher reads them aloud, explains the consequences, and asks whether anyone has questions. It is clear and efficient. It also communicates that the important decisions were made before the students arrived.
I have also seen teachers ask students to create every classroom rule themselves. That sounds democratic, but students are being asked to make decisions about a community they have barely entered. They do not yet know the people, the pressures, or the shared needs of the room.
There is useful space between those approaches. The adult can be honest about what is already decided while still inviting students to shape how the classroom will function. I might say, “Everyone here needs to be safe, able to learn, and treated with dignity. We are going to work together on what that looks like when the room is busy, when people disagree, and when someone makes a mistake.”
The teacher is still leading. The students also have a real role in building the community they are being asked to participate in. This is what student voice with structure can look like during the first week.
Pay Attention to What Happens When a Student Asks Why
There will be hundreds of decisions students do not control. They do not decide the timetable, the fire drill procedure, the curriculum expectations, or which hallway their class uses. Adult authority is part of school life, and sometimes adults need students to follow a direction immediately.
Still, students notice whether explanations are part of the relationship.
A child asks, “Why can’t we sit there?” The teacher may already be thinking about supervision, accessibility, a student who needs more space, or a routine that fell apart with the previous class. The child does not know any of that. They only know they were told no.
Sometimes the answer can be brief: “I need to be able to see everyone from where I’m standing. We can talk later if you think there is another arrangement that could work.”
The answer remains no for now. The student has still been treated as someone capable of understanding the decision.
I think teachers sometimes worry that explaining ourselves will turn every direction into a debate. It does not have to. Explanation and negotiation are different things. A student can understand why a boundary exists without being given control over the final decision. Authority feels different when it comes with clarity.
The Most Confident Voices Will Arrive First
During the first week, some students will make themselves known almost immediately. They will answer every question, tell you about their summer, volunteer to hand things out, and ask whether they can sit beside their friend. Other students will spend the week watching. They are trying to learn whether the room is safe before they show much of themselves.
A classroom can feel lively and welcoming while still being shaped by the same few voices. That is why participation cannot depend only on who raises a hand fastest. A student might contribute by writing something privately, speaking with a partner, adding an idea to a shared chart, or checking in with the teacher at the side of the room. Those options are especially important early in the year, before trust has had time to form.
By the end of the first few days, I would pay attention to who has spoken several times and who has not spoken at all. Silence does not automatically mean disengagement. Sometimes it means a student is still deciding whether their words will be protected once they leave their mouth.
The First Correction Tells Students a Great Deal
The first week will include conflict. Someone will interrupt. Someone will take another student’s marker. A child will refuse an activity. Two students will argue about whose turn it is. A carefully explained routine will fall apart almost immediately.
These moments are frustrating because teachers are working hard to establish some calm. They are also the moments when classroom values become visible.
Imagine one student repeatedly talking over another. The teacher could say, “Stop interrupting. You know the expectation.” That may stop the behaviour, but it does not help either student understand what the expectation is protecting.
Another response might sound like this: “Hold on. You will get a chance to speak, but Maya was still talking. Let’s give her the same attention you will want when it is your turn.”
That correction is still clear. It connects the boundary to another person rather than presenting it as an adult preference.
The language does not need to be perfect. Teachers are human, and nobody consistently produces a beautifully framed response in the middle of a difficult Tuesday afternoon. What students notice is the pattern. Do corrections protect dignity? Are students allowed to recover after a mistake? Does the adult stay curious long enough to understand what happened? Can the teacher admit when they reacted too quickly?
A classroom does not become safe because conflict disappears. It becomes safer when students begin to trust what will happen when conflict arrives.
Plan What Students Will Experience, Not Only What They Will See
Classroom setup usually focuses on the physical room. We decide where the supplies will go, which wall will hold student work, where the schedule should be posted, and whether the desks should face forward, sit in groups, or move into a circle.
Those decisions are worth making. I would also plan for the experiences students will have repeatedly.
How will a student ask for space? What can they say when someone crosses a boundary? What will happen when two students remember the same event differently? How will a student know that an adult is ready to listen? What will the teacher do after realizing they misunderstood the situation?
A few simple phrases can give students somewhere to begin: “Please stop.” “I need some space.” “Can I explain what happened?” “That did not feel okay to me.” “I need help solving this.”
These phrases may seem basic to an adult. Many students do not yet have them available when they are upset. Without language, students often rely on volume, withdrawal, physical reactions, or whatever behaviour has worked for them before. Teaching the words before the conflict gives students another option.
A Few Questions Before the Door Opens
As teachers prepare their classrooms, I would spend less time trying to predict every behaviour and more time thinking about how authority will feel in the room.
Which decisions are already made, and which ones can students help shape? Will students understand what our expectations are protecting? Can students ask why without being treated as difficult? What will correction sound like when I am tired? How will the students who speak least know their perspective is welcome?
The first week does not define the entire year. Teachers will change routines, revisit agreements, apologize, try again, and discover that something which worked beautifully with last year’s class falls apart with this one. That is part of teaching.
But those first few days do establish a direction. Students begin learning whether structure is something being done to them or something helping the community function. They begin learning whether their voice has a place before a problem occurs. They begin learning whether dignity survives correction.
The room may still be unfinished when they walk through the door. The relationship with power has already begun.
- Dr. Cameron McCuaig
- Jun 20
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 10
Schools talk often about student voice, but the harder question is whether students actually experience school as a place where their voice can shape what happens next.
That was the heart of my recent conversation on Restorative Works!, a podcast from the International Institute for Restorative Practices. I joined host Claire de Mezerville Lopez to talk about the Web of Rights, restorative practice, democratic schooling, and what it means to build school communities that serve students rather than simply manage them.
You can listen to the full episode via their website here: https://www.iirp.edu/podcast/the-web-of-rights-centering-student-voice-in-schools-with-dr-cameron-mccuaig
One of the tensions we explored is familiar to many educators. We want students to feel safe, respected, and engaged, but many of the systems we inherit still begin with compliance. Students are told the rules, corrected when they miss them, and often given very little space to understand why those expectations exist or how their own voice fits inside the community.
That approach may create order for a while. It does not always create responsibility.
The Web of Rights begins from a different place. It helps students understand that rights are connected. A student’s right to speak connects with another student’s right to be heard. A student’s right to play connects with another student’s right to feel safe. A student’s right to identity connects with the community’s responsibility to protect dignity and belonging.
In the podcast, I shared a classroom example from kindergarten, where three children wanted to play together outside, but their rights were overlapping in real time. One child loved rough-and-tumble play. One child was worried about being hurt. One child wanted to be part of the game but did not want certain kinds of touch.
A compliance-first response might have been simple: no wrestling.
But a rights-informed response asks a better question: what agreement could protect everyone’s rights?
The students worked toward a shared structure. One became the referee. They created a stop signal. They found a way for play, safety, and identity to exist together. The point was not that adults disappeared. The point was that adult structure helped students practise community.
That is where restorative practice and the Web of Rights meet so naturally for me. Restorative work cannot be only reactive. It cannot just be the card of questions we pull out after harm has already happened. The strongest work is preventative. It is built in the daily language, routines, agreements, and relationships that help students understand themselves as part of a shared community.
That is one reason this conversation felt meaningful. The International Institute for Restorative Practices has spent years helping schools, organizations, and communities think more deeply about relationships, repair, and community-building. Their work includes professional learning, graduate education, implementation support, research, and resources for people trying to move restorative practice beyond a single strategy or script.
That connects closely to how I think about the Web of Rights.
In my own work, restorative practice is not separate from rights-informed education. Both ask adults to take relationships seriously. Both require structure before conflict, not only response after harm. Both ask us to slow down enough to notice who has been affected, which rights are involved, and what kind of agreement could help the community move forward.
That is why IIRP’s ongoing work is important. Schools need more than isolated tools. They need training, research, implementation support, and communities of practice that help restorative ideas become part of the daily culture of school.
This is also why student voice needs structure.
Voice does not mean children make every decision. It does not mean adults step back from responsibility. In fact, meaningful student voice requires strong adult facilitation. It requires clear boundaries, developmentally appropriate language, and a shared understanding of safety, dignity, and responsibility.
When students are included in that process, school starts to feel different. Rules become less arbitrary. Conflict becomes more teachable. Repair becomes more possible. Students begin to understand that their voice is important, but so is the voice of the person beside them.
For educators and school leaders, that shift is not always easy. We work inside systems shaped by curriculum pressure, assessment demands, policies, staffing realities, and limited time. I understand that. I have lived inside those pressures too.
But I also believe we can build classrooms and schools where structure serves students more clearly.
Sometimes that begins with one small question:
Which rights are involved here?
That question can change the tone of a conflict. It can slow down blame. It can help students move from defending themselves toward understanding impact. It can help adults respond with more clarity and less reaction.
I’m grateful to Claire and the IIRP team for creating space for this conversation. If you are an educator, school leader, parent, or anyone thinking seriously about dignity, student voice, restorative practice, and the future of schooling, I hope you’ll listen.
You can find the episode on most streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on the official IIRP website.
You can also explore more of IIRP’s work here:
And if the conversation connects with work you are already trying to build in your classroom or school, you can explore the free Web of Rights Starter Guide and other implementation resources.
The next step does not have to be large. It can begin with one classroom conversation, one shared agreement, or one moment where we pause and ask students to think not only about the rule that was broken, but about the rights that need to be protected.
Updated: Aug 11
There are moments in school when the paperwork is done, the policy has been followed, the adult response can be justified, and still, the child in front of us has not really been served.
I think most educators know that feeling. It shows up in small ways at first. A student is struggling, and the conversation turns quickly to behaviour. A teacher is exhausted, and the answer becomes another initiative, another expectation, another system to manage. A parent raises a concern, and suddenly everyone starts speaking carefully, as though the language of school has become more important than the child’s experience of it.
That is the tension the book I'm writing, is trying to name.
I have spent more than two decades inside public education. I have seen extraordinary educators do deeply human work in systems that often make that work harder than it should be. I have seen schools protect students, open doors for students, and give children a place to belong. I have also seen students quietly diminished by routines, assumptions, labels, and policies that were never really built around who they are.
So this book did not begin from a distance. It began from classrooms, hallways, staff rooms, parent conversations, school meetings, and the quiet knowledge many people in education carry but don’t always feel free to say out loud.
We keep saying public education is here for students. I believe it should be. I still believe public education is one of the few places where children from different families, cultures, languages, identities, abilities, and experiences are meant to learn alongside one another. That is worth protecting. I haven’t written this book because I’ve given up on public education. I’ve written it because I haven’t.
But protecting public education cannot mean protecting every structure public education has inherited.
Some of those structures were built for efficiency. Some were built for sameness. Some were built to make large systems easier to manage. Some were built in another time, for another world, around a much narrower idea of the student. And now, many of those same structures are still shaping children who are growing up in a world that requires creativity, flexibility, collaboration, critical thought, and the ability to live well with difference.
That contradiction shows up everywhere once we start paying attention. It shows up when we call a quiet classroom successful without asking who feels safe enough to speak. It shows up when we treat the same consequence as fairness, even when the students involved are carrying entirely different histories, needs, and circumstances. It shows up when a child’s movement, intensity, sensitivity, or questioning is treated as something to correct before it is understood. It shows up when student voice is invited only after the adult decision has already been made.
This is where I think schools have to become more honest.
A student is not simply a behaviour to manage, a score to report, or a problem to solve. A student is a person with rights. That sounds simple, but in practice, it changes how we understand almost every part of school life.
If students are rights-bearing people, then dignity, safety, voice, and belonging cannot be treated as extras. They cannot be offered when learning is smooth and withdrawn when learning becomes difficult. They have to be built into the structure of school itself.
That does not remove adult authority. It does not mean students get whatever they want. It does not mean classrooms become chaotic or expectations disappear. It means the authority adults hold has to be used in service of students, not simply in service of order.
There is a difference between a school system that manages students and a school system that serves them. A system that manages students is usually asking, “How do we get this child to comply?” A system that serves students is asking, “What conditions does this child need in order to learn, participate, repair, belong, and grow?”
Those questions lead to very different schools.
I think many educators already know this. They feel it on the hard days. They feel it when a student’s behaviour finally makes sense after someone takes the time to learn the story underneath it. They feel it when a conflict that could have become a punishment becomes a conversation, an agreement, or a repair. They feel it when students are given enough structure to use their voice well, and the room becomes more grounded instead of less.
Those moments are small, but they are not minor. They show what school can become when the system is willing to learn.
That is really the heart of School the System. For a long time, we have focused on schooling children into the existing structure. We teach them how to line up, wait, produce, perform, meet the measure, and adapt. Some structure is necessary. Schools need routines. Communities need agreements. Children need limits, guidance, and adults who can hold steady when things become difficult.
But structure should serve students. When structure starts serving the system more than the child, we need to be honest enough to notice.
This book is trying to name the moment when compliance gets mistaken for learning. When sameness gets mistaken for fairness. When silence gets mistaken for respect. When a child is asked to become smaller so the system can remain unchanged.
I don’t think we change public education by pretending educators are not trying hard enough. Most of the educators I know are trying very hard. Many are carrying far more than the public sees. But care inside a strained system is not enough on its own. Good people can still be handed tools that don’t serve students well. Thoughtful leaders can still be pulled into decisions that protect process over people. Caring educators can still participate in patterns they would never have designed themselves.
That is why the system itself has to become part of the lesson.
If schools are truly here for students, then schools have to be willing to learn from students. Learn from the student who withdraws. Learn from the student who keeps getting sent out. Learn from the student who asks why. Learn from the student who does well on paper but feels invisible. Learn from the parent who senses something is wrong but does not yet have the language for it. Learn from the teacher who keeps saying, quietly, “This is not working.”
That is the work this book is trying to begin.
Not a finished answer. Not a perfect framework. Not another promise that schools can be transformed if everyone simply follows the steps. Something more honest than that.
A call to look carefully at what public education has inherited, what it still protects, and what students are asking us to become brave enough to change.
The first draft is finished. The work of refining it is just beginning. And maybe that feels fitting, because the book is asking of the system what writing is asking of me right now: revise what no longer serves, keep what is true, and be willing to learn from what is in front of you.
If this is the kind of school conversation you care about, I’ll be sharing more behind-the-book reflections through The Schooling Signal as School the System takes shape.
