Practice of School Lavatory Cleaning in Cooperation with Local Community for Changing Adults and Educating Children —Introduction of Activities of Workshop through Lavatory Cleaning in Kyoto

Workshop through Lavatory Cleaning in Kyoto (commonly called "Benkyo-kai") is one of educational/research communities in Kyoto. Its main activities include the monthly cleaning of school lavatories, which is conducted on the second Saturday of each month. A questionnaire survey was conducted at 2 elementary schools after the monthly lavatory cleaning, and it was found that there are significant differences in the questions "Are you the first to say Hello?" and "Do you use school lavatories cleanly?" between the children who participated in the "monthly cleaning" and the children who did not participate, for both schools. In addition, it was found, from the analysis of feelings of children after the cleaning, that among 45 children who participated in the cleaning involuntarily, 42 children (93.3%) came to recognize lavatory cleaning affirmatively, and it was inferred that they came to have feelings of satisfaction and achievement. These results indicate that the practice of monthly cleaning of school lavatories may lead to the mental and physical growth of children.