Both the children and the adults have gotten in on the fun while also sharing their future dreams (and lamentations). 

Looking for a way to get students and community members engaged while also promoting a clean environment? One elementary school in Japan came up with the creative idea of a garbage disposal ballot box where anyone could cast their vote to the question of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as they got rid of their wooden chopsticks. Check out the original post by the person who discovered the box at his local school’s festival, Japanese Twitter user @777_ponta.

▼ “Dispose of your skewers and wooden chopsticks in this box.”

“This is the chopsticks disposal at the local elementary school’s festival. It’s pretty neat. Under the adult category, there are a lot of people who responded ‘I don’t want to work.'”

  • The columns signify the age categories of the respondents. From left to right, the signs read: male elementary schoolers, female elementary schoolers, adults, and preschoolers.
  • The rows signify their responses to the question about their future dreams. From top to bottom, the signs read: I want to be a company president, I want to be a teacher, I want to be an athlete, I want to be a YouTuber, I want to be a police officer, and I don’t want to work. 

As you can see, police officer is the clear winner for the preschooler category. However, it is a bit mystifying as to why that choice suddenly lost all popularity with the older age groups. Rather humorously, I don’t want to work appears to take second place–with more responses from children than from adults!

Japanese net users were also tickled by the ballot box idea, responding to the tweet with their own comments and musings:

“I really like the fact that they included an ‘I don’t want to work’ category.”
“It looks like most kids lose their dream of becoming a police officer between preschool and elementary school.”
“I bet that at least one 80-year-old adult wanted to be a YouTube star.”
“Does a preschooler even know what a company president is? Haha.”
“There’s no option for ‘I want to redo my life’…”

Perhaps this is a sign that the local police station should do more “Career Day”-type outreach events with the students once they hit elementary school. At the very least, this guy probably shouldn’t be the one to lead them.

Source: ITMedia Inc.
Featured image: Twitter/@777_ponta