Sweeping our troubles away...

It got colder and windy recently. Today at school, when we opened the windows and doors at cleaning time, the dust bunnies scurried to the far walls and fresh, chilly air swept itself up and down the hallways and through the classrooms.
Cleaning time is one of my favorite parts of the work day. Unlike the janitorial system we have in many schools in the West, whereby one person or a team of people get paid to keep the school tidied, the school's students and teachers here have a designated 'cleaning time.' Each school has their own system: some clean after lunch and some clean before school, but all of the schools I've worked for have had cleaning time.
At the school I work for, we clean after the last class period of the day. Typical responsibilities taken on by both teachers and students include: sweeping the floors, wiping them down with wet rags, wiping the blackboards, vacuuming rugs, clapping erasers, and so on. A particular cleaning method used at this school, which is quite unique, uses tea leaves as a freshener. A student or teacher tosses chopped, wet leaves on the floor in the teacher's room. The leaves are spread with brooms, and the smell of green tea fills the room. Then, the leaves are carefully swept back up and discarded. I used to think the method was crazy; now I just think it is nice. I usually sweep one of the classrooms up on the third floor with the freshman students. When I come back to the teacher's room, it smells fresh and clean.
Sometimes, I would be surprised to see even the vice-principal or principal wiping down the floors, but everyone participates equally, even the head faculty. Hard to imagine such a scene at my old high school!!