Thanks to Joel for allowing me this opportunity to post an article on his excellent site! In my short time as a blogger I have written a few posts which have elicited quite a few e-mails, These include posts about the fish bowl lesson, how teachers may create student failures, and ideas about teaching denotation and connotation. However, my post regarding the need for classroom rules has brought in more e-mails than any other. I actually ran a small in-service at my school for some of the new teachers about why I don't have classroom rules, and I think a couple were shocked that rules may not be necessary. This may sound overly simple, but I tell my (high school) students that