5 ms·

I don't understand the concept of "losing bathroom privileges" like... ok? So should I just shit at my desk? It's not a privilege it's a bodily function you c

I don't understand the concept of "losing bathroom privileges" like... ok? So should I just shit at my desk? It's not a privilege it's a bodily function you can't "take away" someone's ability to go to the bathroom just their ability to do so in a place that is private and purpose built for it.

wisty 3y ago
Learning isn't all fun. Everyone thinks they can make learning fun, but it's always a combination of things that are very specific to the person suggesting it ('Actually making everything Thomas the Tank Engine themed is magic and works very well!') or just wistful thinking ('If the teacher didn't tell me to work I would have been more motivated!'). And most of the more valid research suggests more conservative approaches work pretty well. Schools have to make kids do stuff that just isn't fun, without paying them or offering any real incentives (other than grades, which only count in the last year), so they need to make sure kids don't have excuses to shirk.
- tokai 3y ago
  There is a huge cap between 'learning isn't always fun' to 'breaking the human right to sanitation[0] will aid learning somehow'. [0] https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-sanitation/about-human-rights-water-and-sanitation https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-san...
  - wisty 3y ago
    So to ensure students can use a bathroom if they really need to, but aren't abusing it to just take a break every class (missing maybe 25% of their class time? Say 15 minutes per hour class) you'd agree to something like an app to track it?
    - educaysean 3y ago
      I'd never agree. What happens if I need more than 15 minutes? Will I be deemed a bad student because I simply need more time to do my business? What does this have to do with how I learn?
    - tokai 3y ago
      No not at all. The idea is absurd. Even entertaining that it could be a solution is suspect. If students leave class too much they are marked as absent. It works many other places in the world, without having to do some creepy surveillance of kids bodily functions.
      - wisty 3y ago
        Are they marked absemt on some kind of app?
        mitthrowaway2 3y ago
        We used to use a piece of paper called an "attendance sheet", with ruled lines on it. You can think of it as an excel-like app, with touchscreen stylus functionality and good battery life.
        hn_acker 3y ago
        Not a teacher, but yes. The very same app that teachers use for grading, is my guess. The teacher does the attendance tracking. The app just records what the teacher puts into it. The teacher is free to take notes of when people leave and enter. If most of the class time has the students seated then a student walking around likely is very eyecatching. (What do blind teachers do? Roll call + the honor system is my first guess. Maybe handing out bathroom passes manually would be a viable Plan B.)
    - pc86 3y ago
      How about you can use the bathroom when you need to, and if you actually find instances of students not using the bathroom, cutting class, etc. you address it by punishing those students. Give them detention. Make them have a chaperone at random times. Suspend them. Punish the behavior you want to regulate (lying about using the bathroom to goof off) and don't try to regulate unrelated and uncontrollable bodily functions.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        I don't disagree but the reason schools are turning to alternatives is because schools can't afford the labor to do those things.
        code_runner 3y ago
        good point. lets get some bids on the "shit tracking app", pay for a seat for every student and then make sure we further stretch the teachers by giving them a special admin seat in said "shit tracking app" and making sure they punish over-shitters
        kube-system 3y ago
        Students also have trouble using the restroom when the facilities are inoperable due to vandalism. There's not really a good solution. What is necessary is more staffing, but there is not enough labor available at the rates school districts are able to pay.
        WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        > I don't disagree but the reason schools are turning to alternatives is because schools can't afford the labor to do those things. Hall monitors did this for generations.
        kube-system 3y ago
        That would be the labor I'm referring to. The majority of US schools report struggling to hire paraprofessionals. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-are-school-staffing-shortages-what-we-learned-by-asking-administrators/2021/10 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-are-school-staffin...
    - itishappy 3y ago
      Is there really no way to incentivize compliance for the difficult few without invasive surveillance of the masses? Dumb parallel: Some people litter or jaywalk! We could probably address this by implanting GPS trackers in everybody, but... should we?
- code_runner 3y ago
  I think if I squint and turn my head a bit I can almost maybe see a semblance of a point to what you're trying to say.... but it doesn't really hold up for me at all. Learning isn't fun doesn't really relate to the fact that bodily functions exist. If a kid is well but going to the restroom for 30 minutes every class period and on their phone etc just skipping.... I guess punish that as if it were skipping? You can't just assume negative intent across the entire student body when it comes to checks notes pooping in a toilet like a person?
  - wisty 3y ago
    So instead of a consistent system, teachers randomly punish kids for going to the bathroom if the teacher feels like the kid might be on their phone based on whether it seems to frequent?
    - educaysean 3y ago
      You mean like how our law enforcement works currently? Should the government all put trackers on our vehicles instead? It will consistently prevent things much worse than some students skipping class to go to the bathroom, like hit-and-runs.
    - code_runner 3y ago
      ummmmmmm I mean I guess you could at least try not caring how often a kid is relieving themselves.... you could absolutely make basic bodily functions into a "beat the clock" with a side of a consequences if you'd like though. I'd encourage you to run for your local school board if you feel passionately about this cause.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > Schools have to make kids do stuff that just isn't fun No. That is not the function of schools! Kids are full of energy and interest. A good teacher, combined with a well-designed syllabus and a good teaching plan, will then engage the kids. Of course, the lessons have to match the students' abilities. A HUGE mistake is to compel students to do work that they haven't learned how to do. This mistake was inflicted on me by my maths teacher at a good private school - nominally a very good maths teacher, author or contributor to a number of school maths textbooks. I routinely had my homework returned as "wrong", but I wasn't taught how to do it right. As a consequence, I suffered a 5-year-long mental block in maths. It sounds like Fresno schools are being run by concentration-camp commandants. [Edit] OK, so some kids aren't wide-eyed and keen to engage, whether because of earlier school experiences or because of other experiences. Why compel those kids to go to school at all? You can't force kids to study (no, not even with apps!), so why force them to go to school? I think that at least here in the UK, it's to do with keeping a lid on the numbers of unemployed; and with relieving working parents of childcare duties, so they can do jobs to pay their taxes.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    Don't know why I was downvoted. If school's about compelling students to do what they don't want to do, then obviously schools have to engage in coercive measures, like tracking apps and metal detectors. But why stop there? Why not go ahead and shackle them to their desks? Many US schools already have 20ft-high fences around them, like prisons. How is being imprisoned conducive to learning? Am I downvoted because people really think students are feral monsters, that need to be locked up whether they're learning or not? Is it possible that imprisoning schoolkids makes them more interested in escaping than learning? What kind of parent would send their kids to prison?
msisk6 3y ago
Long ago in 8th-grade shop class I wasn't feeling well and asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom. He said no. Right then I projectile vomited all over him and his desk. All he said was "Ok, you can go." Afterward he never refused any request I made for anything.
- lenerdenator 3y ago
  Guy in my high school class just pissed in a trashcan when he was told no. The idea that you can do this to students without some biohazard cleanup is absurd. It's also just another way America deals with education issues by dealing with everything but the issue. If the issue is students falling behind, it's not because half of the high school class is going to vape in the bathroom. It's because school starts too damn early, kids don't retain info over the summer, and their home lives don't permit the best possible out-of-class education situation. We could deal with those things, but that would mean the sports teams have to practice later, get over the idea that kids don't help their families plant in the summer, and deal with socioeconomic factors, respectively. And that's, like, hard, man.
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    > America deals with education issues by dealing with everything but the issue. > If the issue is students falling behind, it's ... because school starts too damn early, Yes. > kids don't retain info over the summer, Yes. > and their home lives don't permit the best possible out-of-class education situation. Yes. Fully compounded by the utter lack of access to brain building, adultless, free range time+area. source: father of five
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      I grew up in a rural area. In my late 20s, I went to community college in an suburban area. The entrance exam was populated with HS grads and me. I was from the final generation with constant access to adult-free + free range hours. Everyone else was in the early wave of kids with locked-down, 24/7 adulted childhoods. Their education was comparable to mine - in quality, behavior etc (my kids attended their schools). I was one of a handful that didn't have to start off with remedial classes.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Having gone through school and now being an adult, I know full well that normal kids only need one or two bathroom breaks during the day. I also know that there was a large group of kids, generally poorer performing students, who used "bathroom break" as a get-out-of-class-for-10-or-20-minutes each period as a freebie that they will always use. The teachers aren't dumb. They know which kids are abusing the system. And they know these kids will shamelessly look you in the eyes and say "I have to take a shit, I must go to the bathroom" and then go fuck around for 10 or 20 minutes.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  Kids with ADHD on stimulant medication to help them focus better in class will likely need far more frequent bathroom breaks.
- code_runner 3y ago
  sounds like the teachers already know who the bad kids are. Maybe just punish them... tracking every student's bathroom habits is a wild over reaction to a kid skipping chemistry
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    Little Johnny is always taking bathroom breaks. Teacher punishes him. Little Johnny's parents say, you are unfairly targeting our child. Allege discrimination. That is how you get here.
    - code_runner 3y ago
      this really isn't justifying the poo tracking app. sorry but johnny may end up getting away with some bathroom breaks or an administrator is going to have to.... administer
skulk 3y ago
I'll provide a weak counterpoint. Yes, if a student claims in good faith that they need to use the bathroom, there is no excuse for not letting them go. However, expecting students (some of them) to behave in good faith is silly. Students will often abuse this privilege (assumption of good faith) to go to the bathroom to escape the strict classroom environment, to socialize with their peers, or do whatever they want. The school sees this as a challenge to their authority so they crack down as in TFA. (Never mind the fact that schools are making a smelly room with toilets and a sink a more attractive place to be than the classroom for some students is itself sickening to the core.) Edit: I'm not one to complain about downvotes, but this time I don't get it. Am I wrong? These are things I've observed in a variety of schools, and in relatively well-off areas at that. I'd imagine the problems are far more acute in areas of lower socioeconomic status.

wisty 3y ago

Learning isn't all fun. Everyone thinks they can make learning fun, but it's always a combination of things that are very specific to the person suggesting it ('Actually making everything Thomas the Tank Engine themed is magic and works very well!') or just wistful thinking ('If the teacher didn't tell me to work I would have been more motivated!'). And most of the more valid research suggests more conservative approaches work pretty well. Schools have to make kids do stuff that just isn't fun, without paying them or offering any real incentives (other than grades, which only count in the last year), so they need to make sure kids don't have excuses to shirk.

tokai 3y ago
There is a huge cap between 'learning isn't always fun' to 'breaking the human right to sanitation[0] will aid learning somehow'. [0] https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-sanitation/about-human-rights-water-and-sanitation https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-water-and-san...
- wisty 3y ago
  So to ensure students can use a bathroom if they really need to, but aren't abusing it to just take a break every class (missing maybe 25% of their class time? Say 15 minutes per hour class) you'd agree to something like an app to track it?
  - educaysean 3y ago
    I'd never agree. What happens if I need more than 15 minutes? Will I be deemed a bad student because I simply need more time to do my business? What does this have to do with how I learn?
  - tokai 3y ago
    No not at all. The idea is absurd. Even entertaining that it could be a solution is suspect. If students leave class too much they are marked as absent. It works many other places in the world, without having to do some creepy surveillance of kids bodily functions.
    - wisty 3y ago
      Are they marked absemt on some kind of app?
      - mitthrowaway2 3y ago
        We used to use a piece of paper called an "attendance sheet", with ruled lines on it. You can think of it as an excel-like app, with touchscreen stylus functionality and good battery life.
      - hn_acker 3y ago
        Not a teacher, but yes. The very same app that teachers use for grading, is my guess. The teacher does the attendance tracking. The app just records what the teacher puts into it. The teacher is free to take notes of when people leave and enter. If most of the class time has the students seated then a student walking around likely is very eyecatching. (What do blind teachers do? Roll call + the honor system is my first guess. Maybe handing out bathroom passes manually would be a viable Plan B.)
  - pc86 3y ago
    How about you can use the bathroom when you need to, and if you actually find instances of students not using the bathroom, cutting class, etc. you address it by punishing those students. Give them detention. Make them have a chaperone at random times. Suspend them. Punish the behavior you want to regulate (lying about using the bathroom to goof off) and don't try to regulate unrelated and uncontrollable bodily functions.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      I don't disagree but the reason schools are turning to alternatives is because schools can't afford the labor to do those things.
      - code_runner 3y ago
        good point. lets get some bids on the "shit tracking app", pay for a seat for every student and then make sure we further stretch the teachers by giving them a special admin seat in said "shit tracking app" and making sure they punish over-shitters
        kube-system 3y ago
        Students also have trouble using the restroom when the facilities are inoperable due to vandalism. There's not really a good solution. What is necessary is more staffing, but there is not enough labor available at the rates school districts are able to pay.
      - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        > I don't disagree but the reason schools are turning to alternatives is because schools can't afford the labor to do those things. Hall monitors did this for generations.
        kube-system 3y ago
        That would be the labor I'm referring to. The majority of US schools report struggling to hire paraprofessionals. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-are-school-staffing-shortages-what-we-learned-by-asking-administrators/2021/10 https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-bad-are-school-staffin...
  - itishappy 3y ago
    Is there really no way to incentivize compliance for the difficult few without invasive surveillance of the masses? Dumb parallel: Some people litter or jaywalk! We could probably address this by implanting GPS trackers in everybody, but... should we?
code_runner 3y ago
I think if I squint and turn my head a bit I can almost maybe see a semblance of a point to what you're trying to say.... but it doesn't really hold up for me at all. Learning isn't fun doesn't really relate to the fact that bodily functions exist. If a kid is well but going to the restroom for 30 minutes every class period and on their phone etc just skipping.... I guess punish that as if it were skipping? You can't just assume negative intent across the entire student body when it comes to checks notes pooping in a toilet like a person?
- wisty 3y ago
  So instead of a consistent system, teachers randomly punish kids for going to the bathroom if the teacher feels like the kid might be on their phone based on whether it seems to frequent?
  - educaysean 3y ago
    You mean like how our law enforcement works currently? Should the government all put trackers on our vehicles instead? It will consistently prevent things much worse than some students skipping class to go to the bathroom, like hit-and-runs.
  - code_runner 3y ago
    ummmmmmm I mean I guess you could at least try not caring how often a kid is relieving themselves.... you could absolutely make basic bodily functions into a "beat the clock" with a side of a consequences if you'd like though. I'd encourage you to run for your local school board if you feel passionately about this cause.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> Schools have to make kids do stuff that just isn't fun No. That is not the function of schools! Kids are full of energy and interest. A good teacher, combined with a well-designed syllabus and a good teaching plan, will then engage the kids. Of course, the lessons have to match the students' abilities. A HUGE mistake is to compel students to do work that they haven't learned how to do. This mistake was inflicted on me by my maths teacher at a good private school - nominally a very good maths teacher, author or contributor to a number of school maths textbooks. I routinely had my homework returned as "wrong", but I wasn't taught how to do it right. As a consequence, I suffered a 5-year-long mental block in maths. It sounds like Fresno schools are being run by concentration-camp commandants. [Edit] OK, so some kids aren't wide-eyed and keen to engage, whether because of earlier school experiences or because of other experiences. Why compel those kids to go to school at all? You can't force kids to study (no, not even with apps!), so why force them to go to school? I think that at least here in the UK, it's to do with keeping a lid on the numbers of unemployed; and with relieving working parents of childcare duties, so they can do jobs to pay their taxes.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  Don't know why I was downvoted. If school's about compelling students to do what they don't want to do, then obviously schools have to engage in coercive measures, like tracking apps and metal detectors. But why stop there? Why not go ahead and shackle them to their desks? Many US schools already have 20ft-high fences around them, like prisons. How is being imprisoned conducive to learning? Am I downvoted because people really think students are feral monsters, that need to be locked up whether they're learning or not? Is it possible that imprisoning schoolkids makes them more interested in escaping than learning? What kind of parent would send their kids to prison?

msisk6 3y ago

Long ago in 8th-grade shop class I wasn't feeling well and asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom. He said no. Right then I projectile vomited all over him and his desk. All he said was "Ok, you can go." Afterward he never refused any request I made for anything.

lenerdenator 3y ago
Guy in my high school class just pissed in a trashcan when he was told no. The idea that you can do this to students without some biohazard cleanup is absurd. It's also just another way America deals with education issues by dealing with everything but the issue. If the issue is students falling behind, it's not because half of the high school class is going to vape in the bathroom. It's because school starts too damn early, kids don't retain info over the summer, and their home lives don't permit the best possible out-of-class education situation. We could deal with those things, but that would mean the sports teams have to practice later, get over the idea that kids don't help their families plant in the summer, and deal with socioeconomic factors, respectively. And that's, like, hard, man.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > America deals with education issues by dealing with everything but the issue. > If the issue is students falling behind, it's ... because school starts too damn early, Yes. > kids don't retain info over the summer, Yes. > and their home lives don't permit the best possible out-of-class education situation. Yes. Fully compounded by the utter lack of access to brain building, adultless, free range time+area. source: father of five
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    I grew up in a rural area. In my late 20s, I went to community college in an suburban area. The entrance exam was populated with HS grads and me. I was from the final generation with constant access to adult-free + free range hours. Everyone else was in the early wave of kids with locked-down, 24/7 adulted childhoods. Their education was comparable to mine - in quality, behavior etc (my kids attended their schools). I was one of a handful that didn't have to start off with remedial classes.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Having gone through school and now being an adult, I know full well that normal kids only need one or two bathroom breaks during the day. I also know that there was a large group of kids, generally poorer performing students, who used "bathroom break" as a get-out-of-class-for-10-or-20-minutes each period as a freebie that they will always use. The teachers aren't dumb. They know which kids are abusing the system. And they know these kids will shamelessly look you in the eyes and say "I have to take a shit, I must go to the bathroom" and then go fuck around for 10 or 20 minutes.

BobaFloutist 3y ago
Kids with ADHD on stimulant medication to help them focus better in class will likely need far more frequent bathroom breaks.
code_runner 3y ago
sounds like the teachers already know who the bad kids are. Maybe just punish them... tracking every student's bathroom habits is a wild over reaction to a kid skipping chemistry
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  Little Johnny is always taking bathroom breaks. Teacher punishes him. Little Johnny's parents say, you are unfairly targeting our child. Allege discrimination. That is how you get here.
  - code_runner 3y ago
    this really isn't justifying the poo tracking app. sorry but johnny may end up getting away with some bathroom breaks or an administrator is going to have to.... administer

skulk 3y ago

I'll provide a weak counterpoint. Yes, if a student claims in good faith that they need to use the bathroom, there is no excuse for not letting them go. However, expecting students (some of them) to behave in good faith is silly. Students will often abuse this privilege (assumption of good faith) to go to the bathroom to escape the strict classroom environment, to socialize with their peers, or do whatever they want. The school sees this as a challenge to their authority so they crack down as in TFA. (Never mind the fact that schools are making a smelly room with toilets and a sink a more attractive place to be than the classroom for some students is itself sickening to the core.) Edit: I'm not one to complain about downvotes, but this time I don't get it. Am I wrong? These are things I've observed in a variety of schools, and in relatively well-off areas at that. I'd imagine the problems are far more acute in areas of lower socioeconomic status.