For teachers and adults who work at schools (applies also to offices, mission organizations, churches):

1. Mind your own business – you know, the tasks you are employed to complete.

2. Take care of every aspect of your own job before you give time to noticing what someone else is, or is not, doing.

3. Never initiate or perpetuate gossip of any kind – it is always a sign that you are avoiding your own stuff, trying to deflect the attention off something you are hiding.

4. Tell the truth. Anything less will ultimately run you down.

5. Apologize when necessary and try to learn from your mistakes.

6. Get “you need” and “you must” and “you should” out of your vocabulary when you are talking to adults. Children need guidance and instructions. Trust the adults around you to be adult.

7. Stand up to anyone who asks you to do something unethical or immoral.

8. Thank and affirm people who are doing a good job in a manner that gets the person the greatest amount of positive exposure. Resist affirming others to make yourself look good. Teachers seem particularly good at this. (“I want to thank Joe for the wonderful work he does -at making me look even more wonderful.”)

9. Resist frequent reference to your past personal achievements and how long you have been in education. Unfortunately, no one is really interested and, besides, it gets really tiresome.

10. Realize you are at school to work. You are not at school to make friends, or to ease your loneliness or find your lost childhood. You are there to work and feed and support your family and to further the goals of the school.