The Most Valuable Lesson We Learned at School was Cleaning the Room
Every elementary school should teach this act of personal responsibility
In the back corner of every classroom in Japan is a small closet containing several brooms, a dustpan, and other cleaning tools. This included every room in my two elementary schools, my junior high school, and my senior high school, without exception.
Every day, after the last period of class was cleanup time.
The students would move all the desks and chairs to the back, emptying the front half of the classroom. A couple of students would use a broom to sweep the floor from front to back. Once the front half of the classroom was thoroughly clean, other students would move the desks and chairs back to where they were, row by row.
Some students would sweep the floor, some would clean the surface with a rag, some would clean the hallway, and some would clean the bathroom. We would take turn where to clean, but every student participated in the process.
It took no more than 20 minutes. Only after the whole school building was as clean as it had been at the beginning of the day would we be able to go home.
Some students tried to shirk their responsibilities, of course. But others wouldn’t…
