Building the buffer

Non-arbitrary rule: Always let someone know where you are going and when you expect to be back. (Image by Dmitrijs Bojarovs)

Teachers and other authority figures sometimes get criticized for their arbitrary rules.

When I began my teaching career, I vowed that I would always give students the benefit of the doubt. That’s still true, on an individual level. But at the very same time, I prepare for the worst. And that means anticipating where the behavior of a group, or individuals in a group, can go wrong, and building in safeguards.

For example, it didn’t take me long to realize that gum has no place in a school, unless a lot of casual vandalism is your thing. And I came to understand why I can’t allow kids to lie down or put their heads down in class (at least, if I want them to stay awake).

Some leaders have arbitrary rules, sure. But many of the ones that seem arbitrary are meant to prevent a deeper issue. And we can strategically use these types of “buffer rules” to guide not just the behavior of groups of kids, but ourselves.

I call it the Carpet Principle. I used to teach group music classes for preschoolers in a classroom that was actually the front parlor of an imposing hundred-year-old home. The room had two sets of French doors, a fireplace, built-in shelves, and a piano — in short, it was a nightmare to teach in.

A large Persian rug covered the hardwood floor, and this is where my students and I gathered. Just off of the rug, there were countless hazards, but on the rug, we were safe.

So instead of having to give the small children a million rules (“don’t touch the piano, don’t touch the instruments on the shelves, don’t touch the windows, don’t open the doors, don’t play with the floor register,”), I gave them just one: “Stay on the rug.” Thus, the risk was greatly diminished that anyone would knock over a guitar, clonk a head on the brick fireplace, or run out of the room. At the very least, I would buy myself precious seconds, having trained myself to notice if anyone was about to leave the confines of the rug. The rule was simple and arbitrary — and it prevented further problems.

Another example of the Carpet Principle in action is the way the students of The Little Middle School move as a group whenever we go anywhere in public. Back in the olden days when we took class trips — or even when we walk through the neighborhood to go down to the park — the students proceed in double file, staying to the right on the sidewalk whenever possible. They don’t depart from this arrangement until they are explicitly released from it.

Most of the time, such a strict formation isn’t strictly necessary. Our neighborhood is quiet and we could hog the whole sidewalk in an amorphous pack without bothering anyone. However, the double-file formation allows us to see at a glance whether there are any problems. There’s a built-in buddy system, and it’s easy to see if a twosome is falling behind. We can make sure they’re all looking ahead, which makes it easy to start and stop. We can easily spot aberrant behavior, like when a student hops up on a stone wall, pets a passing dog, or jumps up to rip a leaf off of a tree, and call it out.

My twenty-two-year-old self, newly graduated from teaching school, would be deeply disappointed in me for reprimanding such harmless, freewheeling behavior, but it’s simple: If a student can’t walk appropriately in double file, I can’t guarantee that I can keep him or her safe when we go out into the world. I can fix it if someone steps out of line. I’m helpless if someone chooses to run out into traffic. Therefore, we tightly control the pace and structure of our double-file line, and we practice our formation even when we’re walking somewhere safe and easy.

I do use the Carpet Principle to regulate my own behavior. One example is the RSS feed that triggers the daily email to my blog subscribers. The email is set to go out at 9 AM Eastern, which is arbitrary — my commitment is simply to publish a daily post. But publishing each post by 9 AM keeps me in a daily routine of writing first thing in the morning. Otherwise, I might wait until after lunch or later in the evening. From there, it’s not hard to see the possibility of completely missing a day, whether as a result of forgetting or running out of time.

Ironically, the 9 AM deadline actually makes it easier to stick to my daily posting schedule, not harder, even though it’s a tighter constraint. If I were to miss my 9 AM deadline — which happened once many months ago on a post that took a particularly long time to write — I would make changes to improve my process, well before I risked missing a day entirely.

Similarly, I’ve noticed that the dishes in the sink are an early warning system for the chaos in my life. I’ve been experimenting with a buffer rule in which I make sure the kitchen is clean before bed. I don’t always stick to it, but I can definitely see the positive impact when I follow through — and the slippery slope I’m on when I don’t.

Students raise their hand to speak, we knock before we open doors, and credit cards have limits. There are lots of buffer rules that protect us in our daily lives. If you are trying to create a certain result and finding it hard to regulate all of the possible variables, you might use the Carpet Principle to produce an arbitrary constraint. Even if you don’t see a performance improvement right away, you might experience an immediate reduction in stress and anxiety as the world you inhabit gets a little smaller and more manageable.

Where have you used buffer rules to help you? Which seemingly arbitrary rules might have a good purpose behind them? I’d love to hear about your experiences.