My School and My Friends
Primary 2 · Social and Religious Studies
My School and My Friends
Lesson 3 of 3
12 min
Let's begin
On Friday afternoon, the P2 class looks at their classroom. Sweet papers under the desks. A broken window catch. A textbook with three pages torn out.
Their teacher asks one question: "Who made this mess?" Nobody answers. Then she asks a better question: "Whose classroom is this?"
"Ours," says Keza quietly. Exactly. Today you will learn how to look after the school that belongs to you.
Habimana finishes a sweet. He thinks, "It is only one little paper. It does not matter." He drops it.
But let us count. There are 40 children in his class. If every child thinks "it is only one little paper" and drops one, how many papers are on the floor?
40 children, 1 paper each. That makes 40 papers on the floor. Now the classroom is dirty, and the cleaner must pick up every single one.
Your one paper is never only one paper. Carry it to the bin instead. It takes ten seconds.
A clean school is a healthy school. Flies and dirt make children sick, and a sick child cannot come to class.
In Rwanda, people come together to clean and build on umuganda day. At school, you do a small umuganda every day just by picking up after yourself.
School property means everything the school owns and lends to you: desks, chairs, textbooks, chalk, the football, the taps, the doors.
Nobody bought you a new desk. Your desk was used by children before you, and it will be used by children after you.
Here is the rule for anything you borrow at school: use it gently, then put it back.
Let us work through one example. Uwase borrows a textbook for the term. What should she do with it?
A term is about 12 weeks long. If Uwase tears out one page every week, that is 12 torn pages by the end of the term. The words and pictures on them are gone for ever. But if she cares for the book, the same book can teach children for years.
Ishimwe kicks the ball and it cracks a window. He is afraid. He wants to run away.
Running away is the wrong choice. The right choice is to go to a teacher and say, "I broke the window by accident. I am sorry." Accidents happen to everyone. Hiding an accident turns a small problem into a big one. A broken window is sharp, and it can cut somebody's hand.
Rules are not there to spoil your fun. Rules are like the lines on a football pitch: they keep the game fair so everybody can play.
To test whether a rule is a good one, ask yourself: "If nobody followed this rule, would school still work?" If your answer is no, the rule is a good one.
Tip
Here is a small habit that makes you a great school citizen: leave every place better than you found it.
See a paper on the path? Pick it up, even if it is not yours. Chair pushed over? Stand it up. Tap dripping? Close it.
Nobody has to be watching. That is what makes it special.
Think about what you would do, then tap Show answer to check.
You finish a banana at break. Where does the peel go?
Answer: in the rubbish bin. Not on the ground, and not over the fence.
There are 30 children in a class and each one drops one paper. How many papers are on the floor?
Answer: 30 papers. Your one paper is never only one paper.
You borrow a school textbook. Name two ways to take care of it.
Answer: do not tear or write in it, keep it dry in your bag, and give it back at the end of the term.
You break a chair by accident. What is the right thing to do?
Answer: tell a teacher straight away and say sorry. Hiding it makes the problem bigger and can hurt someone.
You see a sweet paper on the path, and it is not yours. What do you do?
Answer: pick it up and put it in the bin anyway. The school belongs to you too.
What you learned today
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