You walk into your fourth-period class on a crisp Tuesday morning, rejuvenated by the peach iced tea that you drank at brunch. You’re ready to do give your all. Five minutes into class, the iced tea that made you feel so great is forcing you out of your seat to ask your teacher to use the restroom. Your basic desire to relieve yourself is met by “I don’t know, can you? You just had all brunch to do that. No.” If you have a bladder, this should sound familiar.
Teachers’ bathroom policies are like snowflakes: no two are exactly the same. Some give students a handful of passes that cannot be reused. Others have a rule that you must spend the same amount of time with the teacher after class as you did in the restroom. Teachers who don’t have explicit policies use icy glares, anger, sarcasm and exasperation to discourage their students from using the bathroom.
Educators are well within their rights when they look at one of their charges in the eyes and scoff at their students’ polite request to follow nature’s call. It is legal to deny children access to the restroom. Many teachers believe that if they do not take a strict stance on bathroom usage, their students will begin to take advantage of their kindness and go galavanting around campus instead of absorbing valuable information.
However, teachers should not worry about their students running off on adventures under the guise of urination. At the end of the day, students are responsible for their own education. There will always be students that ask for a bathroom break for the wrong reasons, but if they make the choice to leave class when they don’t need to relieve themselves, then that’s their loss. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Demanding children to hold back their needs can also bring semi-serious medical issues. Not relieving yourself for long periods of time can contribute to causes of colon damage and Urinary Tract Infections, according to Healthline. Is staying in class for the two minutes you would be gone worth your health? No! Health is wealth! You can always ask a classmate or google something that you missed.
Bathroom passes should be outlawed at PHS. You cannot expect a person to use the bathroom four times in one teacher’s class for the entire semester. Trading these bathroom passes in for points is even more criminal. Students are forced to choose between their health or their grade. Using the bathroom has no effect on the material a student is learning, so points should not be awarded to kids who hold it. This is high school, we are all potty trained. Let us go.
