In my current school, tagging isn't an issue, but the bathroom is a disaster. Besides people peeing all over the toilets and floors (and usually not flushing what actually gets inside the bowl), every few days all of the toilet paper and paper towel rolls are shoved into every urine-filled toilet. A door was broken off its hinges as well. This was actually a new bathroom after the old ones were closed due to students causing flooding in one and taping the garbage can to the ceiling in the other (among other incidents).
My question is simple: how can we get our male students to respect the bathroom? There's virtually no vandalism outside of it, and even if you put the destruction to the side for a moment, it's still disgusting and messy all the time.
- If you've had this particular problem at your school, what has been successful in addressing it?
- Have you had similar issues elsewhere at school? What has been done that has worked?
- How do we build a sense of ownership and responsibility for our school in this case, and in general?
3 comments:
Our restrooms are amazingly clean - both boys and girls. The answer? Could be because we have small class sizes and the same teachers teach the same kids all day long - grade 10 and 11. Kids are held accountable for everything they do and don't do. All of this happens because each one of us teachers invests time, energy, and interest in our relationship with each of the kids. Might sound hokey, but I think that's the key.
Universal Hub, a personal favorite blog covering everything Boston, shared this post and prompted a very interesting discussion.
Smokin' - and everything else - in the boys' room
Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful post. I've featured it on my blog as one of The Cornerstone Accolades for February 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/bcazmp
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