Day 121,

Start of the second week of school.  Most of the children seemed excited to be back, so that was nice.  They were less excited when I started the morning off by telling them that going forward they would be required to clean up before leaving at the end of the day.  While cleaning up after them all every day hadn’t yet gotten to feel overwhelming, I could easily see it going that way eventually if I didn’t do something to head it off.

When I talked to Cass about it yesterday she said she was surprised I hadn’t done that from the start.  The old archivist had back when she was still learning.  So had Pat while acting as interim archivist from what she heard.  When I asked why she hadn’t said something sooner she shrugged and said she figured I was just being nice.  Either that or I wanted the extra work since I don’t do much else the rest of the year.

Harsh, but not as inaccurate as I might like to admit.

Tangent aside, the kids were mollified somewhat when I added in that -  for now - they would only be responsible for cleaning up their individual spaces around their seats/mats; getting everything neat and ordered like they found it and wiping their tablets blank.  I also threw in a bit about it being a lesson in responsibility and taking care of your surroundings, so they should view it as a desirable thing to do rather than a burdensome chore.  Not sure how convincing that part was.

Still, when the time came, none of them complained about it, although I did have to remind more than a few of them.  Nor did the parents seem to mind having to wait an extra minute or two, although time will tell if that tolerance keeps up.  Might be extra incentive for those kids to keep things tidy to begin with.

I considered doing an extra pass over everything once the children had all left, but decided to leave it be.  Maybe comparing themselves to one another could be peer pressure towards doing a good job.

Still bugs me a bit that the older kids definitely knew the cleanup was normal and didn’t say anything last week.  Then again, maybe they made the same assumptions that Cass did.  Or perhaps whatever surprise they expressed at not being told to clean up at the end of the day went over my head.