What Does Clean Really Mean?

03/15/2018

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Mother Teresa

"In essence, the battle about health boils down to sterility versus sterility – sterility in the germ-free sense, non-sterile in the sensory and aesthetic sense," wrote Jim Greenman in the popular book, Caring Spaces, Learning Places, recently revised by Mike Lindstrom. "Warmth and security for a young child come in part from a familiar home-like setting, physical contact with other bodies, and softness...definitely not a sterile experience. This sounds inviting. It also sounds germ ridden and very unsterile in a cleanliness sense...

"The environmental resolution to avoid sterility in a human sense and maintain sterility in a healthy sense is to recognize that clean and sanitary are not the same thing, even though we often act as if they are. Generally, a parent's first criterion for a children's program is cleanliness, but there is a difference between the 'unclean' of sand, water, and play dough in use and the 'unclean' of sloppy kitchen or bathroom clean up. Programs need to understand and articulate the distinction between the two."

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