Beyond the Classroom: Oy the bathroom!

Bathroom time seems to be a trial every year. It becomes a place where cleanliness goes out the window and somehow, behind one little door, rules become meaningless. This year, the bathroom and how we use it has been on my mind a lot. Why do the children feel it is not a place that deserves respect and what am I doing to condone that feeling? Today I decided to tackle the issue of disrespecting classroom bathroom.

Inspired by our trip to Tribeca Community School, a Reggio-inspired school. http://www.tribecacommunityschool.com/tribeca-community-school-photos I followed an idea they had, they created a rules group to discuss and think about the rules their class needed to be safe and learn. The rules group meets twice a week and the project will likely last several weeks.

So today I asked the children who would be interested in being a part of the bathroom group. I was surprised to see 6 hands rise immediately. Our dialogue began with a discussion about cleaning the bathroom. K thought somebody, like her mom should clean the bathroom. While V thought we should clean it ourselves. P mentioned that if you see a lot of paper, pick it up. I asked the children what their bathrooms looked like at home, we decided that our bathrooms were more beautiful at home. This led me to ask them if they thought making our bathroom more beautiful would inspire us to keep it more clean. The consensus was yes. From here, the bathroom group split into two groups. P, A, and H made the artwork to beautify the bathroom. K, V, and A worked together to draw a picture showing how to use the bathroom correctly. Their drawing turned into a jail, which you can see right here...

As the group explained their jail bathroom diagram to me, I picked out the key ideas: use the toilet (actually I think they said pee in the toilet) and flush the toilet. With this we made the three rules, to be posted in each stall. I wrote first...