A group of students started helping staff to clean-up school area. No one told them to, they just got together and started voluntary service. It is not very often that you get to see such helpful attitude in schools but then the eight and nine year olds are innovative and nothing would stop them.
This was a great opportunity I couldn't let go. I wanted to use this chance to infect more kids with the same bug, I took photos and posted them around the school. Kids just love to see themselves in the photos. There was great excitement for two days.
Then something strange happened which I was not prepared for. After two days the spontaneous help stopped. Finished. No one came to help; kids said they prefer to play or chat. It puzzled me.
Many days later, I brought up the subject with them. The kids said there were too many others now wanting to share the work and no one got happy enough. Further, kids who started it didn't like the spot-light turned on them through the photos. My pro-activeness had effectively killed the social phenomena. The promotion had exactly opposite effect to what I naively expected.
Its been a months since then and some kids have returned to help again. This time around, I am keeping away from them. They know better.
No comments:
Post a Comment