Apparently There’s a Pool

On Wednesday, my afternoon elementary school classes were cancelled. So, on my way out the door for lunch, I said goodbye to everyone and they said “see you next week.” I figured I was in the clear and wouldn’t be expected back in the afternoon. But then some other teachers, along with the principal, came up to me and told me that, this afternoon, everyone would be cleaning the pool. Then, they said (at least this is what I had thought they said) “we want you to come help us clean the pool.” I obviously didn’t have an excuse (being that I’m usually at that school on Wednesday afternoons), so I said I would. They practically cheered. “Really? That’s so great! Thank you so much! Who would have guessed?!” It’s almost as if they were expecting me to say no. I think they were expecting me to say no. I wish I had known that.

After lunch I change out of teaching clothes and into pool cleaning clothes and head to the pool. I didn’t even know the school had a pool. Apparently all the schools in the area (elementary and middle) have pools. But they only use them, like, twice a year. I guess because the kids don’t have the summers off, a little bit of pool time is put into the schools’ yearly schedule. I don’t know why each school needs a pool though. If they only use it twice a year, wouldn’t it make more sense to have one pool that the kids get bused to on their two pool days? It would.

So, when I get down there, the kids are already there – in their gym/pool-cleaning outfits – blue shorts, white shirt, red hat. I get a look at this pool – it’s filthy. There’s an enormous puddle of mud in the middle of it. No one has heard of a pool cover.

There are actually two pools – a kiddy one (not nearly as dirty) and a big one (filthy). I get assigned to clean the big one along with the fifth and sixth grade boys. Everyone gets a scrubber-brush and a small piece of wood (for the stuff that the brush won’t quite get). We all get evenly spaced along the width of the pool. Everyone gets a small four or five foot wide section running the length of the pool. Then, as coordinated by the teacher in charge, we all clean a designated section at the same time. First, clean the wall. After a few minutes – stop. The teacher comes around with a hose to rinse it off. Then, scrub your area up to the line. After a few minutes, stop. The teacher hoses it off. Then, use your piece of wood to scrape the stuff that’s really stuck. Then we move on. This is how the cleaning proceeds – for the entire pool. Notice that cleaning times and sections are uniformly allotted. So, if you had a section that was particularly dirty (as many were) you were given the same amount of time to clean as someone with a much less dirty section. In that case, you only have enough time to scrape off the first layer of dirt – or whatever you could get to. “We’re finished cleaning this area whether its clean or not” seemed to be the attitude.

This further supports my thesis that, in Japan, the purpose of cleaning (as it concerns school cleanings) is not to make things clean. Rather, it is a socialization ritual. The point is that everyone is there and participates. The cleaning is regimented so that everyone participates equally. While this practice does not result in clean pools or schools, it does have an effect on the kids. None of the kids have attitude or a sense of entitlement. Even the “bad” kids, who goof off a little during the cleaning, don’t challenge the system that forces them to clean. In America, if you did this to kids, you’d get an earful of “Are you kidding me”s and “I’m gonna tell my parents about this”s and “I don’t want to do that”s. It could just be that this is a small town I’m teaching in. Maybe the kids in more metropolitan and affluent areas of Japan have more attitude. Or, maybe the cleaning thing actually works…

Anyway, when we were finished, the pool was still dirty. I mean, the puddle of mud in the center was gone, but the dirt and calcified… things… that were really stuck, remained there. Did we make progress? Absolutely. Do I want to swim in this pool? No. Should they have hired someone to do this? Yes.