學習作品

｜TMIS – Atlanta’s Intern Journal at TMIS EP7｜

【About Cleaning】

One afternoon last week, teacher M was absent and teacher B asked everyone to clean up the classroom after working time, but the children did not move. The teacher said that the children would decide whether to fulfill their responsibility according to “the current circumstance”, which means “which teacher is on sight at this moment”. A similar thing occurred in my senior high school, so I was quite curious about the teacher’s response.

Like what I noticed last week, there is no such thing as a cleaning duty list in the classroom. I was told that “There used to be one, but teacher M threw that paper away.” The reason was that the children “did not like the idea”. I was so amazed to see how highly the children’s opinions are respected. Until the end of my senior high school life, all of the cleaning duties are already determined and you have to keep doing the same thing every day until the time for exchange. Nonetheless, in my opinion, you can only enable the children to work independently by allowing them to choose their own work. After all, there will not always be someone to decide your work for you.

This time, I noticed that the teacher invited several “cleaning experts”, the children who are especially good at sweeping, mopping, arranging, and wiping, to demonstrate how to do the cleaning well. The teacher did not scold the children for “not cleaning”. On the contrary, the teacher ensured that everyone is informed of the method and enabled to tidy up the environment.

“Not doing the cleaning” might seem to be a good reason to scold the children. However, last week I observed that some children (especially the new child, G) did not know how to sweep the floor. If you simply rebuke the children for not cleaning, they might still not be able to clean afterward because some of them just have not obtained the ability to do so yet. Hence, firstly, you should figure out the possible reason behind the situation and take a proper resolution. I think the teacher was brilliant!

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