Thanking the School Attendants

In the picture, two pupils are standing in a school corridor handing a handmade card to a cleaner, who is holding a mop with her bucket beside her. Three or four other pupils are standing a little further back, watching and smiling. The cleaner looks surprised and pleased — she has stopped mid-task and is leaning forward to look at the card properly rather than just taking it. What I also noticed is that the card is clearly handmade rather than bought, which probably means more to her than something from a shop would.

I would say the two cleaners who look after our block. There was a week when a boy in my class was unwell and was sick in the corridor outside our room, and one of them came and cleared it without making any comment about it at all, which I think saved him a lot of embarrassment. Most of us walk past them every morning without saying anything. After that week I started saying good morning to them, and now one of them knows my name. It costs nothing and I am not sure why I did not do it earlier.

I think that is largely true, and it is worth admitting rather than arguing about. For the rest of the year most of us walk past the cleaners without looking up, and then for one week there are cards and posters everywhere. I understand the criticism that this makes the whole thing feel arranged rather than sincere. However, I would rather have the week than not have it, because it is often the thing that makes someone notice for the first time — I only learnt our cleaner's name because of one. That is why I believe the point of the week is not the week itself but whether anything is different in the month after it.