Every day, at a certain time, in tens of thousands of elementary schools from Hokkaido to Okinawa, the bell will ring to signal the time to clean the schools, including cleaning the toilets. The children rolled up their sleeves, knelt down on the ceramic tile floor, holding brushes to clean every corner of the toilet.
During my work trips to Japan, I was most impressed with the journey to learn about toilets. Vietnam - Japan Friendship Ambassador Sugi Ryotaro shared: public toilets in Japan would not be as clean as they are today without education from schools.
The Japanese approach the toilet not with biological horror, but with aesthetics and spirituality. In Shinto belief, the boundary between impurity and purity is at the core of the order of life. The most impure place is the place that needs the light of purification the most. Japanese folklore has passed down the belief in Kawaya-gami, the god of the toilet, the patron deity of the toilet.
After Covid, although some schools started hiring cleaners (due to concerns about infectious diseases), most public schools in this country still maintain students cleaning themselves. The principal and homeroom teachers are always the first to pick up the mop.
The Japanese do not use harmful bacteria to educate about toilets, but rely on ethical behavior with two social principles. One is to avoid disturbing others (Meiwaku). Leaving a dirty water stain on the seat or a bad smell in the common space is considered a gross violation of the peace of the community. The second principle is considerate, discreet empathy (Omoiyari). The person who enters later should feel like they are the first to use that space.
Japan's outstanding improvements in smart toilets later are not just technical achievements, but the mechanization of the Omotenashi philosophy, taking care so thoughtfully that the beneficiary has not asked for it. The heated seat comforts the body, eliminating the cold feeling. Warm water spray and deodorizer maintain absolute cleanliness. Otohime emits fake water sounds to protect privacy, saving users from embarrassment...
In Vietnam, it is not uncommon for students to clean schools.
The generation of students in the 1970s and 1980s was familiar with "public service". We brought brooms, plastic buckets, spread disinfectant lime powder, divided shifts to clean two-compartment toilets or swept every square meter of the school yard full of leaves.
The disruption occurs when the market economy transforms the school into an educational service provider. When parents pay "cleaning" money, an implicit psychological contract appears: I pay for my child to enjoy knowledge, not for him to clean up trash and feces.
From being a comprehensive educational space, the school shrank into a place to teach literacy. The word "Ceremony" has been more or less eroded. We teach children about gratitude with sample essays but deprive them of the opportunity to practice community awareness with fifteen minutes of cleaning a shared bathroom.
A child who once had to sweat and scrub off a yellow stain will gradually become more conscious when behaving in the bathroom. Compassion is not born from theory. It sprouts from empathy through real-life experience.
But maintaining or restoring the culture of students cleaning the bathroom should not be seen as a way to save money on hiring janitors, and absolutely cannot be a form of special student discipline. It should be an egalitarian rite of passage for all children, regardless of background.
Right now, other parents will probably ask me a question: is the writer himself ready to let his child clean the school?
I honestly answered "no".
I'm not ready. My hesitation is because the issue is not simply about the consent of a few parents. We have lived for too long with a different concept of what our children should do and what others should do for them.
Education needs to be based on a unified cultural foundation from family, school and society. Japan's toilet culture does not create a God in an instant, but is formed over a long period of time from common aesthetics and behavioral ethics.
Toilet cleaning culture, where people confront their own biological instincts, needs to be built from school and family education. But the more fundamental thing is to re-create the cultural space of "first learning rituals" in general for children.
The word "Ceremony" is not just in the way we greet or deal with big things. It is also present in the way a child cleans up his own mess, knowing not to bother others and not taking service for granted.
From such small things, a way of living with others can be formed.
