Social twister......(re: unemployment)?

I mentioned in another question that when I went to school we regularly (once or twice a month) spent half an hour cleaning the school grounds and surrounding streets.





The reasons for this I understand as being to create awareness of a contribution to society, learning a social skill and of course economically it makes sense - a cleaner school means less cleaning staff required which means less school fees and taxes.





However there is another spin: less cleaning staff also means less jobs!





Would you rather see more jobs at perhaps the sacrifice of social skills?





or more social skills at perhaps the sacrifice of some jobs?





or would actually consider it as jobs sacrificed if the school never employed much cleaning staff to begin with?





Where do you stand on this (I know where I do)?

Social twister......(re: unemployment)?
This is s difficult one.....true, we should create awareness to keep our environment clean.......but wouldn't the very people employed to clean after us be better utilised to sift real refuse from recyclable stuff? .......... the other thing is that I've seen many people throwing dirt through moving cars, especially from taxis........if you ask them they give the same answer that pedestrians give you; "we are creating jobs".......... we must really try to change our attitude towards environmental cleanliness!!!!!
Reply:hmmm - tuff one


Sure, you talking about creating jobs, but how glamourous is a cleaning job? What im trying to say is that if ppl learned to clean up after themselves (taking responsibilty) in the first place, the need for cleaners wouldnt be as much we need it now; then maybe these ppl can find better jobs that they want to do (i know im not being that realistic).


However, what if a school organizes a drive to clean up a local public area; like a park, spruit etc.? In this way they learn some social responsiblity, an area is clean and safe for the public instead of schoolgoers, and jobs can still be maintained (no pun intd) at the school. We did that once at primary school, could've done it more tho...
Reply:I think it is more about learning kids to pick up after themselves.





If you want to create jobs go to the townships there is allot of cleaning up needed there
Reply:This is most definately a conundrum! Between a "rock and a hard place" so to speak.


I think ANY positive education we can give our children is good...


Why should this be at the expense of someone's job? If this were to be the case, I would suggest the school instead come up with a project.... maybe require kids aged 12 and up to work so-many hours on a Habitat home, or soup kitchen/homeless shelter, something along those lines to teach them the same thing..and to teach the blessings of volunterism.