Instead of announcing, each time, that there would be a change in her
way of running the school, Miss Rand should have said, “Don’t talk aloud
without permission, Theodore,” the first time and then, without saying
any more about it, she should have quietly signified by a gesture or a
look that speaking aloud was forbidden, refusing to answer queries put
in this fashion. If she had done this _every_ time a pupil spoke aloud
and had never let a single opportunity to correct this bad habit go by,
the school would always have run as smoothly and as well as it did for
the few days after one of her periodic upheavals of enforcing order.
Have backbone enough to stick to the course of action which you know to
be the best, in spite of the fact that you are tired and that four
o’clock is almost at hand. All you need to do is to raise your hand in a
gesture enforcing silence, but do it every time talking aloud occurs.
The effect of quiet insistence upon the no-talking rule is much better
than a hundred spells of violent housecleaning, with periods of laxness
in between.