Going to the bathroom more than three times a week means they have a health issue? Seems a bit heavy-handed. Lots of kids get bullied and would rather go to the bathroom during class when no one else is in the bathroom. At some point, it becomes routine so it makes sense that you would go to the bathroom during the same class. That said, my world history class in high school was so boring, I would ask to go to the bathroom and just walk around the school for 10 minutes. It was a couple hours after lunch, so it made sense that I was going number 2.

No, it doesn't "mean they have a health issue", and I didn't say that it did. Part of the teacher's job is to look for signs of abuse, bullying, and health problems. I'm not a doctor. I see a possible symptom, I'll bring it to the attention of people who can help. If they are using the bathroom frequently because they are being bullied then I am exactly doing my job in the best way possible by alerting the nurse, who can alert the counselor, etc.

Getting bullied so much you're afraid to use the bathroom may not be a health issue, but it sure is an issue. If I was a parent I would want to know if that was happening.

Why would you do that? That doesn't seem very trusting of your students. People need to go to the bathroom several times a day, there's no reason to think that needing to go to the bathroom in your class is an indication of a health issue.

Good question. I tried to treat my students as adults, to the occasional chagrin of the administration, as much as possible. I definitely did not trust them—I knew too much—but I tried to pretend that I did. So my ploy was to discourage the students who would otherwise go hang out in the bathroom every single class. Of course one needs to go several times per day. But that does not translate to every time my class meets.

For my context here, I went to a high school that was centered around progressive education principles and I never had to ask to go to the bathroom. There were no disciplinary policies like that. And in fact, everything was fine. We all still worked hard, paid attention, and got our diplomas. I think too many teachers assume students are all malicious gremlins trying as hard as they can to avoid school. Turns out, most adults will start to chafe too if you tell them they have to ask to go to the bathroom after the third time doing so in your presence, let alone if you make them ask every time. And some adults will even use bathroom breaks as an excuse to waste time.

So be it! That's life.

Your school sounds like the sort of place that would select for well behaved children whose parents had the ability and wherewithal to select a progressive school. I don't think policies like that work in schools filled to the brim with students who absolutely do not care about school in the slightest.

People who absolutely do not care about school and don’t want to be there are unlikely to attain much benefit from school. I think this is true no matter how much you try to force them to pay attention, punish them for skipping, leaving class regularly or simply daydreaming while ignoring the instructor. There just isn’t much use imposing the will of an authority on someone who has their own free will which isn’t aligned and doesn’t want to be dominated. In my opinion, success at that sort of endeavor should not be celebrated. A student should only be in school if they want to be there.

Perhaps, but the policies we do have in the US pretty clearly do not work either. Beyond that I think treating children in a humanist fashion is an ethical obligation we hold as adults, but this perspective is apparently quite radical.

>> I think too many teachers assume students are all malicious gremlins trying

It only takes a few to ruin it for everybody.

Look, I’m with you (although nothing can be “centered around” anything). But most schools are not organized that way, and there’s only so much one teacher can do to buck the system. As it was, I got fired from that particular job after two years, and it wasn’t because I was too strict, certainly.

>nothing can be “centered around” anything

Not quite sure what you're getting at here but insofar as progressive education was an explicit philosophy reflected in policies and actions, it was centered.

>But most schools are not organized that way, and there’s only so much one teacher can do to buck the system. As it was, I got fired from that particular job after two years, and it wasn’t because I was too strict, certainly.

No disagreement there, and I'm sorry to hear you got fired. I'm sure your students appreciated you doing your part to make things less shitty.

It was “centered on” those things, not “around”.

Ah! Perhaps if my English teacher had been more of a hardcore disciplinarian...

I'm not going to assume anything because it may have just been what you told the children, but if you actually sent notes to the nurse without talking to a kid beforehand, you're definitely overstepping.

It's perfectly normal for bowel movements to be on a schedule. If a student it leaving your class multiple time per week then have a discussion to see what's going on, you might learn something about their life that paints them in a new light. Or, maybe discuss the possibility of going before class starts if possible.

I think people are downvoting your original comment because referring a student directly to the nurse is a strange thing to threaten upfront.

I did in fact talk to them beforehand, and only sent two notes in two years.

Kids abuse this, I went to an upper middle class Catholic school for middle school, and even there, bathrooms breaks were used as an excuse to go hang out in the bathroom and ultimately culminated in what amounted to a daily fight club, where there was a sense of honor if you got knocked out

That is ridiculous, and exactly the problem I remember from middle school (by high school the teachers had loosened up). 50% of your students are girls experiencing menstruation for the first time. Speaking from experience, in the first few years it pops up by surprise, or use go through pads (teenagers use pads instead of tampons generally, and they go bad more quickky) quicker than you expect. And since you normally change your pad in the morning before school, there’s a fixed window when you need to change it again.

Again speaking from experience, there’s nothing more humiliating than leaving a bloody mark in your desk because your teacher limits bathroom passes. And even if you think that you would make an exception, many well-behaved students won’t speak up, hoping they can make it to the next class. If you’re ‘enlightened’ enough to let your students go to the bathroom three times a week, you’re enlightened enough to call the truants on their BS without penalizing the rest of the class.