School – the best grooming ground in cleanliness for kids

 Schools are our second home, and so if teachers take a greater responsibility on their shoulders to instill civic sense in our kids, so much the better. If parents could contribute to the civic sense of their children in good measure. However, school teachers can influence kids to a greater extent, which in turn may have some positive effect on their parents . Hope, all our teachers join hands and raise their voice for a cleaner India.  

Bits of Paper, 

Bits of Paper,

Lying on the floor,

Lying on the floor,

Make the place untidy,

Make the place untidy,

Pick them up,

Pick them up.

This is not just a nursery rhyme for my nine-year-old Aryan.  He has been following this poem in true letter and spirit. Everything, including chocolate wrappers, pencil wastes find their way into his bag, if not the dustbin. So when I empty his bag in the evening, upside down,  all kinds of wastes keep appearing from nowhere. When I start questioning him, all he answers me is, “Mummy, I didn’t find time to throw them in the dustbin.”

For Aryan throwing wastes in his bag is much more easier than the dustbin. And I've reprimanded him for this more often than not. However, I thank God, for his sensibility towards environment and its cleanliness, for he never throws waste on the way or on the ground. For him, it’s the bag or the dustbin. No where else. I thank his school teachers for instilling this sense of cleanliness in him.

Though parents have a primary role to play in  building character of their children, a teacher’s role in student's life cannot be underplayed, considering that kids spent a good 6 to 7 hours in school premises. A school, is after all, a kid's second home. Aryan goes to school that has acres and acres of playground. And, believe me or not, you won’t find a piece of paper lying here or there in the school premises or on their ground. That’s the kind of cleanliness policy the school authorities follow. Naturally, the children follow suit. If it’s was not for his teachers, specifically the PT teacher of his school, it would have been a daunting task for me to instill such civic sense in my son.

So much for my son’s civic sense. But the same doesn't prevail in our neighbourhood. The aunty in our neighbourhood is good 20 years old to  me, that bring her age to 55, has a tendency to keep her house spic and span at the cost of the common plot in our area. As in, all the waste paper, colorful polythene bags, plus all the dirt and dust inside the house makes it to society's common plot. Her 'damn the common-plot philosophy' has landed us in a catch 22 position. Whether to confront her on this topic, is the question that we keep asking to ourselves every other day. For all the waste makes its way into our garden area and we with painstaking efforts end up cleaning all the mess, which she seems to create so painlessly and effortlessly.  Only if she had gone to a proper school, or at least had some good teachers to guide her towards proper civic sense. Sigh…Sigh…But what pains me more is  that her children, who are probably going to better schools and learning  all that is required to keep the environment clean, seems to be equally blind towards their mother’s ways. Just hope, that our PM Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan probably will bring them to their senses. Or probably, we can bring her to senses today itself Kyuki Bin Bole Ab Nahi Chalega.

This post is written for #AbMontuBolega campaign held in association with Indiblogger and Strepsils.  Tweet about the campaign here: https://twitter.com/strepsilsindia.

We know that raising our voices against all that is dirty in our country is a power that we all have. Let’s exercise the power of our voice & work towards a Swach Bharat.

Join Kyuki Bin Bole Ab Nahi Chalega #AbMontuBolega.