Little Cleaning Machines

Who needs custodians and janitors when you've got 1,088 teenage boys?

Not Jinju Jeil Middle School. And not the rest of the public schools in Korea, either. I haven't yet figured out the pattern, but on most days after the final bell rings at 3:30 and classes are officially over, the boys start cleaning. They sweep, they dust, they wipe, they mop and they scrub. They clean the stairs, the floors, the windows and the desks. They empty the trash. They clean the classrooms, the hallways and the teachers' offices. Every afternoon around 3:45 I roll my chair away from my desk so the first student can sweep under my desk and the second student can mop. I think I'm the only teacher who every says "thank you." ("Thank you" is not nearly as common an expression in Korean as it is in English).

They DON'T, however, clean the bathrooms. Apparently they used to, but they did such a terrible job and would screw around so much that they since got banned from that responsibility. I'm sure they were very disappointed about that one. (We do actually have a few women who are here every day cleaning bathrooms; otherwise, the students clean EVERYTHING!).

About once a month, maybe less, Monday afternoon's sixth period becomes special deep-cleaning days. They spend an entire class period moving desks around in classrooms, wiping the blackboards clean, and climbing out windows onto the rooftops to clean the glass.

What a brilliant idea. But, I can't imagine this EVER working in public schools back home...