I’m not teaching your kids how to read if I have to also teach them to clean toilets.

I teach at a middle school and kids vandalizing or trashing the bathroom is a near daily occurrence. The maintenance crew has to shut down the bathroom and fix/clean whatever the kids did and it’s a huge waste of resources and time. It also normalizes this kind of behavior and lack of regard for your community. If the kids were responsible for cleaning their own bathrooms, I very much doubt that this would happen.

Someone mentioned it up thread, but this is the practice in Japan, where students are responsible for cleaning the whole school.

Not for nothing, Japan is an extremely clean and neat society. And Japan’s sports teams and their fans are legendary for leaving locker rooms and stadiums clean at international sports competitions.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/07/03/football/japan-belgium-russia-thank-you-locker-room-trnd

https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2022/nov/28/litter-picking-japanese-fan-explains-the-importance-of-clearing-up-at-world-cup-video

Obviously it is more than just making kids clean up the schools but an entire cultural philosophy of taking stewardship for the shared environment.

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Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher and I 100% think students should be responsible for cleaning most of the school. When kids have to clean they take care of things.

Ok, so you’re good with the school day ending at 5 instead of 3 so you can supervise kids cleaning?

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Anonymous wrote:No, not the bathrooms.They should help keep the classroom tidy but the bathrooms actually need real cleaning.

You should be working on your DD’s aversion at home. That’s your job, not her teacher’s.

You don’t think middle schoolers are capable of cleaning a bathroom? But I’m sure your little one is in all AP classes and headed to Harvard? 🤣🤣🤣

NP.
Mine can because I taught them at home. I’m not a lazy POS who needs the school to teach my kid basic life skills.

And no, my kid isn’t going to clean up the feces that your kid threw at the walls.

Anonymous wrote:My kid gets one break all day - a 20 minute lunch. He has 5 minutes to change classes, and no study hall or recess. So when would he be cleaning? I think not. School is already enough of a slog.

Poor baby. Your kid is not special and there is plenty of time during their 7 hour day for a 10-20 min chore. I assure you they would survive and thrive.

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher and I 100% think students should be responsible for cleaning most of the school. When kids have to clean they take care of things.

Thank you. I’m glad you chimed in to put a stop to parents claiming the teachers would quit if kids had to do this. We know that’s BS but thank you for confirming.

My kid gets one break all day - a 20 minute lunch. He has 5 minutes to change classes, and no study hall or recess. So when would he be cleaning? I think not. School is already enough of a slog.

Kids cleaning bathrooms, seriously? Our school had norovirus so badly a few years ago that they had to shut down the school for a day in order to clean it. So no thanks.

I am a teacher and I 100% think students should be responsible for cleaning most of the school. When kids have to clean they take care of things.

No. Poor use of time. Schools are already failing miserably at teaching academics. The last thing they need to implementing some kid-run cleaning system. There are paid custodians that already do this.

They can clean your bathroom at home or send them to summer camp for some old fashioned bathroom cleaning

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A teacher is not your nanny!

You realize that the more kids invest in their surroundings, the easier it is for teachers to teach, right? I'm sure many parents, including myself, would gladly volunteer their time teaching kids how to clean their shared spaces if it meant that more kids learned to be decent citizens. If you're among the ones who would decline, we already know that. Many parents volunteer hundreds of hours a year to clean up after your precious snowflakes so the teachers don't have to waste their time.

The parents who would pitch in to help generally already have kids who are polite, hardworking, and helpful. Those kids would be dutifully scrubbing the toilets while the ones who never turn in classwork and wander the halls all day would be scrolling on their phones and begging their parents to Door Dash them lunch. There would be no consequences for not helping, just as there are no consequences for not handing in work and not going to class. The sentiment behind this idea is understandable but the wheels would fall off in about a week.

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Anonymous wrote:A teacher is not your nanny!

You realize that the more kids invest in their surroundings, the easier it is for teachers to teach, right? I'm sure many parents, including myself, would gladly volunteer their time teaching kids how to clean their shared spaces if it meant that more kids learned to be decent citizens. If you're among the ones who would decline, we already know that. Many parents volunteer hundreds of hours a year to clean up after your precious snowflakes so the teachers don't have to waste their time.

Totally agree and I would do the same.

Anonymous wrote:A teacher is not your nanny!

You realize that the more kids invest in their surroundings, the easier it is for teachers to teach, right? I'm sure many parents, including myself, would gladly volunteer their time teaching kids how to clean their shared spaces if it meant that more kids learned to be decent citizens. If you're among the ones who would decline, we already know that. Many parents volunteer hundreds of hours a year to clean up after your precious snowflakes so the teachers don't have to waste their time.

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Anonymous wrote:At my private school, we cleaned the cafeteria tables and swept. Different people did it for a week and then switched. I can tell you for a fact that there was never anything but a few crumbs on the floor. If anyone spilled something, they'd go to clean it up and apologize to whoever was doing floors that week.

Did you scrub the toilets?

Nope. I just told you what we did.

Great. The topic is cleaning toilets.

The POINT of the post is students taking an active role in keeping their school clean as a matter of course, which is why I responded with my experience.

The point is OP wants her child’s teacher to add teaching cleaning bathrooms to their list of things they apparently have to do because parents won’t.

Schools teach kids all kinds of things that parent won’t or can’t. So what.

So you are good with lazy parents and asking teachers to clean bathrooms on top of everything else they do?

Where did I say that I’m ok with lazy parents. I’m ok with acknowledging they exist because of course they do. And who is asking teachers to clean bathrooms? The topic is kids cleaning bathrooms. Not teachers.

Who would teach kids to clean school bathrooms? How do you teach someone to clean a bathroom? You show them by doing it.

Sure. You tell them to take a brush and scrub. Super hard. I know.

Right. Teachers cleaning bathrooms.

Again. Playing dumb. Kids would be the ones holding brushes. Get it now?

Riiight. Ask a teacher how they would teach this and they will say they would be scrubbing toilets to show how it’s done.

You guys really do want teachers to quit rather teach your kids a few chores.

I have zero problem with teachers doing this. Zero!

Of course you don’t. You’re a parent, not a teacher. Yet you expect them to do both jobs for you.

Nope. My kids clean bathrooms regularly. I’m just done with parents who hide behind this fake concern for teachers.