Clean-up Builds Community

Here is what clean-up time can look like in a preschool for five-year-olds.

• All the children participate.
• They step aside to allow access to others.
• They initiate their own actions, making their own choices of what to do.
• They work in informal teams.
• There is no rush, no races, no press upon them from others.
• Clean-up is natural, like living life together.
• They have fun doing real work, so it doesn’t look like “work” to them.
• They continue working until an area is perfectly restored and clean; then they look for something else to work on.
• In a closing game they invented at their initiative. they celebrate their group accomplishment.
• It looks like they enjoy belonging and participating as a community.

Rare Footage

This is the only video I know of where one can see a clean-up happen without adult involvement. For me, it represents the ultimate goal of preschool: joyous participation in a democratic learning community.

You Can’t force It to Happen

You can’t push a string, either. Group dispositions and participation arise because the children take it on. It grows and sustains because the children enjoy doing it. It is more fun to be involved than undermining it. Note this video was recorded in April. It took one month for 80% participation and six months for 100%. It grew because it was theirs.

If an adult asked or directed children to do this, the most likely response would have been reluctant acquiescence or outright rebellion, neither of which shift the responsibility to them. Rather, the leadership team was careful not to push, no questions or directions, and simply live life with the children learning to make their school their own.

The rules are simple.

• Model
• Inform
• Respond positively to what you value

If you want something to happen that isn’t happening, you can do it yourself highlighting in a natural way how things are done well. Some children may notice right away; others gradually become aware. In a large group time you can demonstrate tricky things, like cleaning paint brushes or cleaning a table so it is perfectly done, and everyone can see. Model.

You can always talk about yourself, what you are doing, what others are doing, what has to be done, methods and organizational systems that have elegant results. Like a chatterbox, you can expand upon on the ideas in the charts below. Inform.

You can respond with nonverbal recognition (thumbs up and smiles), narrate actions that are new or clever, and quietly comment about those good feelings one has inside when doing good work together. Respond positively.

Enterprise Talk & Pedagogy

Two other sections of this site more specifically address leadership (school or family) for community responsibility to flourish. You can find them in the navigation bar on the left (or the menu at the top of your mobile screen).

• Enterprise Talk offers specific actions to practice to get really good at it under Leading and Caring for Children.
• More exists on the importance of clean-up as an essential aspect of overall professional development in a sub-heading of a Pedagogy for Ourselves under the current menu Structuring School Opportunities.

Goals for Cleanup Time

Here are some phrasings for the underlying goals for clean-up that were created in my classes. I led this by showing video of children in a complex and messy—but eventually successful—clean-up time in a large care center and invited people to write down their thoughts about what children might learn from cleaning and restoring the classroom. They shared with each other in a small group where everyone could have a chance to talk and respond. Then we worked as a class to compile dispositions and attitudes we might build which included the richness of everyone’s ideas.

I recommend posting these on the wall. Thoughts like these when stated clearly can be expressed in various ways to highlight what we do together. PDF document of these signs: CleanupMessages