A Clean Environment Inside and Out

At 121 we run the detention program at high schools. Schools give us a classroom to use and send us learners from grades 8 to 12 who disobeyed school rules during the previous week. Over the past few years we have made an interesting discovery: the cleaner and better organized the classroom, the better behaved the learners.

There is something about a messy classroom that leaves one feeling one should be messy in the way one relates to others and as a group. The entire atmosphere becomes messy and it becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain control.

At one of the schools there is a classroom we really appreciate. It is always immaculately clean and neat. It is also very cosy. It has interesting and colourful pictures covering its walls. It has large colour photos of learners enjoying class outings. It also has brightly coloured cards stating the class boundaries. For example, the cards state things like ‘respect each other’ and ‘listen to each other’. The moment learners walk into this classroom we sense a difference. It is as if the atmosphere of the classroom rubs off on all of us as we walk in and we all begin to internalize our environment.

At another school we have noticed something similar. We have used the same venue over a number of years. For much of those years the venue, which is full of books and is carpeted, was badly looked after and messy. Books were strewn all over the place and papers and pencil sharpening littered the floor. But this past year the classroom has been neat and organized. There are interesting posters on the wall. The books have been neatly shelved. There is a sense of respect for books and learning. We have noticed a change in learner behaviour.

Before, learners may not have thought twice about dropping papers on the floor or tearing pages out of books strewn about the classroom. Now they tend to throw papers in the bin and books are handled with care. Before, we saw learners scratching on desks. Now that the desks are neatly arranged and the classroom clean, learners seem more reluctant to graffiti the furniture.

Sometimes we look for major interventions to influence learner behaviour but perhaps all it takes is simple things like keeping the classroom clean.