| Keep the campus clean (12/07) | | Print | |
| Written by Bonnie Tong | |
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Take a walk around the courtyard and you will see discarded water bottles, food trays piled high with unwanted lunch and countless food wrappers littering the tabletops and the ground. Head out past the locker rooms, out near the garden area between the science building and locker rooms, and you will see more trash, as well as trampled plants. Instead of complaining about the poor appearance of our school, the student body needs to be more proactive in keeping the school clean. The cafeteria, for instance, has six garbage bins located in the middle of the room. Despite their accessibility, people often leave their trash behind. Students need to take more responsibility in their actions and clean up after themselves. It is not required to wipe down the table with the cafeteria workers’ cleaning solution, but students should at least throw their own trash away. Their mothers don’t work here — they’re not going to pick up after them. There have been numerous incidents in which a security guard confronts a group of students leaving the cafeteria and tells them to throw their trash away. The most common reply is, “But it isn’t even ours. It was already there when we got there.” That may or may not be a lie, but nonetheless, cleaning up someone else’s mess is the mark of a productive citizen. A dirty campus reflects badly on all students — we need to start taking responsibility for everyone’s actions. Unfortunately, many students disrespect the school’s efforts to maintain an attractive campus. Our gardener painstakingly grows and maintains hundreds of plants, but many take them for granted. Some cram trash into the plants, which ruins the aesthetic beauty of our campus and disparages his efforts. Every day, thoughtless students trample plantings due to self-absorption. Students complain that the bathrooms are home to shocking amounts of graffiti, puddles of unknown liquids and wads of toilet paper in unseemly places. But it is the student body that trashes the bathrooms while custodians clean up the mess: we are to blame for the filth. The hill outside the math wing has been stripped of much of its grass due to the new wheelchair ramp. Fresh grass is slowly growing on the hill, but it is hindered because students trample off the path. Newly planted trees are also struggling for survival because careless members of the school abuse them. Thereare students dedicated to preserving the beauty of our school. The Gardening club teams up with the gardener to plant flowers and shrubs around the school. The Recycling club navigates from classroom to classroom every Friday afternoon to collect all the recycling bins. Their efforts are commendable and more students should follow their example of dedicating time and effort to improving the school’s aesthetics. All students should participate in the next spring Beautification day. It is a great opportunity for students, parents and faculty to beautify our campus. Activities include washing and painting school walls, planting and trimming hedges and flowers, sanitizing the bathrooms and picking up litter around the school. If we can maintain nationally-ranked test scores, then we can easily maintain a clean and appealing campus. Our carelessness is to blame for our campus’ lack of aesthetic appeal. |
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