To think kids should clean schools as in Japan?

[brasty]

In Japan, kids clean up after themselves in schools. It is to teach them respect for their surroundings and to take responsibility for caring about those surroundings. AIBU to think this would be a good idea to introduce into British schools?

Good idea. We seem to have decided that schools should teach everything and parents nothing anyway, so why not something useful like cleaning? Plenty of kids seem to get to adulthood without ever having learned to clean a loo or sweep the floor properly. Just one more thing schools are failing at, right?

The children already do an end-of-day clear up.

They wouldn't be allowed to use the detergents that adult professionals use, there would be hundreds of children hanging about waiting to use the one hoover, they'd all get in one another's way, you'd need to employ extra staff to superivse children in loos / halls / common areas as teachers would all be in classrooms, and then the teacher would probably still have to do it.

What happens when a bunch of 6 year old go down with a diarrhoea and vomiting bug - would you be happy about sending your own children to use toilets which have just had some water thrown at them by other 6 year olds?

I see cleaning as a worthwhile, vitally important job, which is precisely why it should be done by trained professionals using suitable equipment.

I 100% support this. There is no aspect of cleaning a school that is "beneath" my children, and there is nothing wrong with learning how to clean a toilet or mop corners. It is part of being alive in this world, and even if you are lucky enough to grow up and never have to do these things again, it means that you will be aware of what people do for you and not be blithely unaware of whatever it is that your cleaner has to do when she gets the Flash bathroom spray to the back of your toilet.

Obv. it would be impractical to just tack this on to the end of the school day in British schools - it's a way of thinking about education and the role of schools that we lack in this country. But should there ever be a shift that brought it about, it would have my full support.

Sounds like a pretty shit idea, and I actually used to be a cleaner.

@astoundedgoat I don't think cleaning is beneath my child. She actually tidies and cleans at home. She'll clean the tiles/shower screen when she's in the bath,and no one ever asked her to. She cleans the cupboards and floors with me and she loves cleaning windows. She's 5 and enjoys cleaning more than I do.
She won't do toilets because I won't let her,not because it's "beneath" her,but because I don't think it's safe.

Tidying yes but cleaning no. Kids are just not thorough enough and if they were only allowed to use water then wouldn't the rate of stomach bugs and other infections increase? A toilet/bathroom area cleaned with water only, by a child would be completely minging.

It's kind of insulting to suggest that professional cleaners can be replaced by just anyone, especially children. It's nothing to do with cleaning being beneath me or my child.

Absolutely! Some pupils have little awareness of their surroundings and end up leaving me or the cleaners to do things. I hate it when pupils hide/leave paper or bottles on their chair rather than put it in the bin. What's the point in that?! Some can be really smug about cleaners and a little bit of respect would be nice actually!

I take it that the real cleaners should lose their jobs so the kids can clean?

serving food, clearing up after others, mopping floors, cleaning toilets are all seen as demeaning and humiliating rather than part of life well given that many of us do this at home for free, I guess maybe not so much demeaning and humiliating as not what we're paid to do during the work day

there is nothing wrong with learning how to clean a toilet or mop corners. It is part of being alive in this world so teach them at home!

I'm constantly harping on at pupils (Secondary) to tidy up behind themselves (not cleaning, just clearing up their own mess before anyone jumps on that)

... and they very often voice the opinion "That's what the cleaners get paid for".

I usually let them know in quite ranty firm tones that the cleaner has a hard enough job actually cleaning floors, tables, loos etc. without having to pick up and clear away their crap first.

These are teenagers who should know better too. They just think it's funny to leave rubbish lying around or they are too bloody lazy to walk one metre to a bin.

It's only a minority that are like that of course but even the nice ones often fail to tidy up after themselves. It's as if they don't realise someone has to tidy up mess!

Makes me very pissed off. And I wonder if their parents are going around tidying up after them at home to generate this attitude that "someone else will do it"?

Schools are for learning. Not bog scrubbing

Why can't cleaning and tidying also be something to be learned? IME it's something people should be taught more.....

I, for one, am very much in favour of teaching my own pupils to tidy up their own crap.
I don't let them out of lessons until they do.
I usually have another class coming in so I don't have time to clean up their mess.

Why can't cleaning and tidying also be something to be learned? IME it's something people should be taught more..... why can't parents teach them that and the schools can get on with academics?

Imagine trying to manage 34 15/16 year olds cleaning!

MommaGee - I'd love it if parents taught their teenagers to clear up the mess they leave at their backsides but sadly a fair proportion of them don't seem to.

So, I'm damned if they are getting away with leaving crap lying around in my classroom - they tidy it up because I don't want to have to do it.

Salmo no I totally agree with you I just don't think the onus should be on teachers to teach about daily living. My point was to LiveLong that it should be taught at home and reinforced at school

What Salmottutta said!

Then before the cleaners came in, I'd end up having a tidy around as there's always something hidden by bags, under feet etc. I also kept wet wipes for cleaning down the desks as a weekly clean was insufficient, particularly if there'd been biro explosions.

Then again, my first job in a shop involved 30 minutes of unpaid cleaning at the end of trading before we were permitted to leave.

no it's a terrible idea. My dc went to school to learn many things, how to clean wasn't one if them. they did that at home And it's taking jobs away from the cleaners!

I live in Osaka and have sent two kids to Japanese public school.

I think having children do light cleaning and tidying is excellent and encourages them to have respect for their environments.

However: choosing not to have caretakers or cleaners on the grounds that "the kids will do all the cleaning!" is a fantasy that results in grimy schools and toilets that stink. A school toilet is not like a home toilet: it is a viral mixing bowl that is being pissed and crapped in all day long, without a break, by literally dozens of different people. It needs serious professional cleaning if you don't want noro and other things breaking out--and of course, that is exactly what happens in Japanese schools.

And of course, the other thing is that teachers (fed up with grimy and smelly environments) get fed up and wind up doing cleaning... on top of their already LONG working days. Mothers get socially coerced into "volunteering" (= forced unpaid labor) to clean up some more, using their precious annual leave to do this. Japanese mothers are going back to work like everywhere else--this is not a land of traditional Japanese housewives any more.

Not working. Hire cleaners, please. Having children do light clean up duties is fine, however.

mary Very interesting. I'm also interested in what you said about Japanese mothers going back to work. My husband is Korean and we live in Korea. It is still pretty normal here for women to either never return to work or to take extremely extended time out of work - this is at least true for the middle classes. Even after marriage, it is pretty common for the woman to quit work, even though there are no kids yet and my husband's family were surprised that I kept working after our wedding.

It is changing, but slowly.

My children are at an independent school in Australia. They clean their own classroom...each child has a job and they swap jobs regularly...so nobody's stuck with the worst ones. They also care for their own chickens and each has a small garden for vegetables and flowers.

They also built their own den...a builder came in and worked with them.

It's vital that children not only learn academic subjects but also practical ones and how to function in society and as a group.

It depends on the jobs though mrs . I totally agree that kids should tidy up the reading corner, fill water bottles, sweep up the floors - I believe that that is common in most schools. At least, every school I've worked in, most teachers have done that (otherwise you spend half your prep time cleaning.)

In Japan (and other countries), the kids also mop the floors, clean the bathrooms etc. It is meant to teach them responsibility which I guess is fine in theory, but in practice most of the time they just do a pretty shit job, aren't allowed to use chemicals, aren't really supervised so just do the bare minimum and so on. So the schools end up really disgusting because no-one is ever cleaning them properly.

I went to boarding school in the U.K. And we had to do cleaning duties. We cleaned our house every morning and then school cleaning duties after school. It was fine. I think in Japan it may be more common in primary school. The teachers often have to join in too.

My husband loved cleaning up time as a boy in Tokyo because they would just goof around slopping dirty water at each other or chucking toilet-water bombs out of the bathroom windows at people.

I think I prefer professional cleaners to handle this kind of stuff.