4 ms·

Why do school administrators have such a strong fascination with restroom visits? Appears across geography, and across time. Someone should get to the root of t

Why do school administrators have such a strong fascination with restroom visits? Appears across geography, and across time. Someone should get to the root of this.

outside1234 3y ago
I know you are saying this in jest, but there is a huge amount of bullying and drug use that happens in bathrooms at schools.
- bluedino 3y ago
  Or just kids who want to wander the halls, etc
- consp 3y ago
  > bullying As someone who was actually bullied and not heard about it, maybe that's a US thing but to me that never happened in bathrooms and always in the open when teachers were not around.
horns4lyfe 3y ago
I’d be willing to bet the root is a few problem kids that abuse bathroom visits, and schools don’t have a way to just deal with problem kids so they just do something broad. As with most things in schools, you should be more upset with parents that don’t teach their kids not to ruin public goods.
- miah_ 3y ago
  ... I was a problem kid. Believe me, schools have ways to deal with problem kids. It doesn't require installing big brother screens in the toilet. For me the problem was that most schools are all about memorization and thinking inside the box. Switching to a different type of school solved my issues. (smaller classes, more permissive, exploring problems and their solutions with multiple correct answers rather than simply 'memorize this thing, check the box').
  - consp 3y ago
    > smaller classes That's a money issue, not a system issue.
- joezydeco 3y ago
  We just went through a cycle where an entire nation of TikTok users were shown videos of students vandalizing bathrooms. The larger object you could steal, including entire urinals and toilets, the better. Search on "devious licks" and you'll find dozens of school districts that were fighting this problem. At my local HS the answer was to close most of the bathrooms during class time and monitor visits, since putting live cameras in the bathrooms would cause an even larger uproar. Students always had access to a bathroom during class time, just one up near the admin offices that could be more closely observed.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    During my junior year at high school, someone wrote a bomb threat as a joke on the stall. Suddenly every building entry had a backpack checking station you had to go through. Every bathroom break was scrutinized and logged, and only one person was allowed in the bathroom at a time. Small school (my class had 36 kids or so) but it's a great example of one person ruining everything for everybody.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
miah_ 3y ago
Its training for the workplace. Better use the restroom quickly, we got product to push so the founders and shareholders can profit. 'Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I poop on company time.'
- 3seashells 3y ago
  [dead]
- Amorymeltzer 3y ago
  There's a teacher who says exactly that: >"A large part of the school's job is to prepare students for work, we want you to be in class on time because if you show up late all the time to work, they're not going to hire you,"
  - lenerdenator 3y ago
    Well they're doing a shitty job of teaching this, because all of the office jobs I've had don't require me to have my ass in a seat, completely awake and ready to work at 7:35 AM, and when you're a teenager going through hormonal changes, that's a huge ask. My current job has me getting here at 8 AM.
  - bcrosby95 3y ago
    The state funds our schools based upon number of students, absence, and tardies. They have a financial incentive to make sure you're there on time.
janice1999 3y ago
>across geography Most Europeans have no idea what a "hall monitor" is and teachers don't have such obsessive control over their students use of toilet facilities. The schools I went to were not perfect and yet all students had to do was raise a hand and ask for permission to leave the classroom.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ta988 3y ago
  what's a hall monitor?
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    A person walking around the school garbage collecting loose students and returning them to their classrooms. Or potentially sending them to the principal’s office if they are repeat offenders. At my high school, we had a city police officer doing this. (Not continuously, but she was always around looking to catch students breaking the law.) Of course this officer was fully armed with a pistol, taser, and pepper spray.
    - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
      Where I grew up these were called "School Resource Officers" and their presence was inscrutable. Ours coached the girl's volleyball team, had his own small office, and seemingly did nothing else for virtually all four years I was there. He was there to quickly call for police presence when once a large fight broke out, but that was about it.
      - BobaFloutist 3y ago
        Their job is to cower in the bathroom in the rare event of a school shooting.
    - hedora 3y ago
h2odragon 3y ago
The message that "even your body belongs to the Authority and you must be complicit in disciplining it to our convenience" is very powerful. Gotta get that pounded down into kids when they're too young to effectively resist or question.
mrguyorama 3y ago
School administrators are awful because modern American school parents are god awful and want stupid things. Several states are attempting to bring back physical violence as a behavior modification tool because way too many of our fellow citizens genuinely believe that "spare the rod, spoil the child" is a literal, scientific fact. So many people genuinely believe the correct way to handle bad child behavior is to hit them. It's funny, because out of the tens of thousands of students my mom taught over 30 years, the students that misbehaved pretty regularly came from parents that enthusiastically punished their child with violence.Those kids always loved her though, because she was firm and strict but also very maternal. She regularly had kids that everyone else considered "bad students" or "trouble kids" behave, and actually LEARN things (and she taught french class FFS), to the point that those troublesome kids would often beg to come spend their study hall periods in her classroom and actually behave and do their homework. There are a lot of shitty human beings in the American school system, because we pay garbage, so you don't become a teacher unless you have some ulterior motive. For many idealistic young people, they want to teach, but that gets metaphorically beaten out of them by petty administrative politics and dealing with all the shitty people who got the job by default because nobody else wants it and they just want to be a shithead to kids. I shouldn't have to say this but not every physically abused kid will act out, and not every one will act out in the same way. Plenty of those kids were just desperate for someone to pay attention to them. Because we are social animals, and the people that think we should beat our kids are pretty bad at knowing that.

Why do school administrators have such a strong fascination with restroom visits? Appears across geography, and across time. Someone should get to the root of this.

outside1234 3y ago

I know you are saying this in jest, but there is a huge amount of bullying and drug use that happens in bathrooms at schools.

bluedino 3y ago
Or just kids who want to wander the halls, etc
consp 3y ago
> bullying As someone who was actually bullied and not heard about it, maybe that's a US thing but to me that never happened in bathrooms and always in the open when teachers were not around.

horns4lyfe 3y ago

I’d be willing to bet the root is a few problem kids that abuse bathroom visits, and schools don’t have a way to just deal with problem kids so they just do something broad. As with most things in schools, you should be more upset with parents that don’t teach their kids not to ruin public goods.

miah_ 3y ago
... I was a problem kid. Believe me, schools have ways to deal with problem kids. It doesn't require installing big brother screens in the toilet. For me the problem was that most schools are all about memorization and thinking inside the box. Switching to a different type of school solved my issues. (smaller classes, more permissive, exploring problems and their solutions with multiple correct answers rather than simply 'memorize this thing, check the box').
- consp 3y ago
  > smaller classes That's a money issue, not a system issue.
joezydeco 3y ago
We just went through a cycle where an entire nation of TikTok users were shown videos of students vandalizing bathrooms. The larger object you could steal, including entire urinals and toilets, the better. Search on "devious licks" and you'll find dozens of school districts that were fighting this problem. At my local HS the answer was to close most of the bathrooms during class time and monitor visits, since putting live cameras in the bathrooms would cause an even larger uproar. Students always had access to a bathroom during class time, just one up near the admin offices that could be more closely observed.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  During my junior year at high school, someone wrote a bomb threat as a joke on the stall. Suddenly every building entry had a backpack checking station you had to go through. Every bathroom break was scrutinized and logged, and only one person was allowed in the bathroom at a time. Small school (my class had 36 kids or so) but it's a great example of one person ruining everything for everybody.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

miah_ 3y ago

Its training for the workplace. Better use the restroom quickly, we got product to push so the founders and shareholders can profit. 'Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I poop on company time.'

3seashells 3y ago
[dead]
Amorymeltzer 3y ago
There's a teacher who says exactly that: >"A large part of the school's job is to prepare students for work, we want you to be in class on time because if you show up late all the time to work, they're not going to hire you,"
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  Well they're doing a shitty job of teaching this, because all of the office jobs I've had don't require me to have my ass in a seat, completely awake and ready to work at 7:35 AM, and when you're a teenager going through hormonal changes, that's a huge ask. My current job has me getting here at 8 AM.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  The state funds our schools based upon number of students, absence, and tardies. They have a financial incentive to make sure you're there on time.

janice1999 3y ago

>across geography Most Europeans have no idea what a "hall monitor" is and teachers don't have such obsessive control over their students use of toilet facilities. The schools I went to were not perfect and yet all students had to do was raise a hand and ask for permission to leave the classroom.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ta988 3y ago
what's a hall monitor?
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  A person walking around the school garbage collecting loose students and returning them to their classrooms. Or potentially sending them to the principal’s office if they are repeat offenders. At my high school, we had a city police officer doing this. (Not continuously, but she was always around looking to catch students breaking the law.) Of course this officer was fully armed with a pistol, taser, and pepper spray.
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    Where I grew up these were called "School Resource Officers" and their presence was inscrutable. Ours coached the girl's volleyball team, had his own small office, and seemingly did nothing else for virtually all four years I was there. He was there to quickly call for police presence when once a large fight broke out, but that was about it.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      Their job is to cower in the bathroom in the rare event of a school shooting.
  - hedora 3y ago

h2odragon 3y ago

The message that "even your body belongs to the Authority and you must be complicit in disciplining it to our convenience" is very powerful. Gotta get that pounded down into kids when they're too young to effectively resist or question.

mrguyorama 3y ago

School administrators are awful because modern American school parents are god awful and want stupid things. Several states are attempting to bring back physical violence as a behavior modification tool because way too many of our fellow citizens genuinely believe that "spare the rod, spoil the child" is a literal, scientific fact. So many people genuinely believe the correct way to handle bad child behavior is to hit them. It's funny, because out of the tens of thousands of students my mom taught over 30 years, the students that misbehaved pretty regularly came from parents that enthusiastically punished their child with violence.Those kids always loved her though, because she was firm and strict but also very maternal. She regularly had kids that everyone else considered "bad students" or "trouble kids" behave, and actually LEARN things (and she taught french class FFS), to the point that those troublesome kids would often beg to come spend their study hall periods in her classroom and actually behave and do their homework. There are a lot of shitty human beings in the American school system, because we pay garbage, so you don't become a teacher unless you have some ulterior motive. For many idealistic young people, they want to teach, but that gets metaphorically beaten out of them by petty administrative politics and dealing with all the shitty people who got the job by default because nobody else wants it and they just want to be a shithead to kids. I shouldn't have to say this but not every physically abused kid will act out, and not every one will act out in the same way. Plenty of those kids were just desperate for someone to pay attention to them. Because we are social animals, and the people that think we should beat our kids are pretty bad at knowing that.