Mom asks Daniel what he would think if students cleaned their own school every day. Classrooms, hallways, toilets -- all of it.

He says that sounds like a punishment.

He is almost exactly wrong.

In Japan, school cleaning -- o-soji -- is an established part of school life, not an optional activity and not a punishment. At a scheduled time each day, the whole school stops. In many schools, a short piece of music plays over the speakers to signal cleaning time. Every student, from first grade through high school, starts cleaning. Their own classroom, the hallway outside it, and other assigned areas around the school.

Teachers clean alongside them. There is no hierarchy in the cleaning. A teacher might be scrubbing a toilet next to a first grader. The point is that everyone shares in the care of the space everyone shares.