[whimsicalism]

At least in my urban high school experience, some teachers were of about equal maturity level to their students.

Also, students would go to the bathroom and then just not come back and roam the halls and enter random classrooms and say hi to all of their friends in the middle of class.

[Broken_Hippo]

You can deal with that on a case-by-case basis. It is better to have the chance of someone skipping class than it is to tell a girl that thinks her tampon is leaking (because of surprise heavy bleeding) that she can't go to the bathroom and instead, has to hope that she didn't leak through her pants onto the chair. Or that someone has to risk soiling themselves because they have to go.

I'm really happy my mother made sure I knew she'd fight for me if a teacher wouldn't let me use the toilet. I didn't need her to, but my sister did.

[whimsicalism]

I'm explaining why teachers in some schools do this, I still think it is stupid and ridiculous.

Worth noting though: no, I don't think you can deal with it on a case-by-case basis at the level at which this occurs.

What the better teachers seemed to do is find a way to set up a system with students who would lock & unlock the classroom door for students who needed to go to the bathroom. (the door was never locked from the inside, just the outside)

[Broken_Hippo]

Teachers know when a student doesn't return to the classroom, though. Simple enough to take report that to whoever in the school handles discipline: Usually, the same person that would get involved with other sorts of skipping class. I don't really see the issue: It can't be that many kids doing it every class and having teachers and staff monitor halls, if you have well-funded schools, shouldn't be an issue.

I'm opposed to locked bathroom doors as well: Again, all it takes is one teacher saying, "no", and suddenly, the same student is out of luck.

Or we could be more lenient on students and not worry so much about attendance so long as they hand in their work and get decent enough grades.

[whimsicalism]

> teachers and staff monitor halls

I mean, my school tried that - they implemented a hall sweeping program where teachers locked their doors and security would try to catch all the students in the halls. It didn't really prevent it because they couldn't constantly hall sweep all of the halls during the entire school day (and it increased the number of students entering other classrooms randomly to try to hide from the security guards) and it was also super racially biased in its enforcement.

> It can't be that many kids doing it every class and having teachers and staff monitor halls

No, it is quite a few students. You underestimate the dysfunction in the typical inner city school.

> Simple enough to take report that to whoever in the school handles discipline

And do what to discipline them? Kick them out of school?

> not worry so much about attendance so long as they hand in their work and get decent enough grades.

In an urban environment, "not worrying about attendance" translates to a. to very upset parents (esp. among working-class parents who are not at home and view education as a route to success), b. failing low-income students, c. more crime.

Urban schools are hard to fix!

[srtjstjsj]

And why do kids do that? Either because school is miserable and/or because saying hello to a friend isn't a moral travesty

[whimsicalism]

> school is miserable

absolutely, agreed.

> saying hello to a friend isn't a moral travesty

I'll be honest: if you didn't grow up in a school like this, you don't understand how disruptive it is for a student to burst into the classroom in the middle of the teacher explaining something and go around high-fiving everyone in the classroom with the teacher powerless to stop them. This was not an infrequent occurrence.

[leetcrew]

I went to a school where football was an extremely big deal and we actually had a school sanctioned spirit squad that would do this before big games. five to ten highschool juniors/seniors would barge into classes yelling, shaking desks, high-fiving people, etc. the teachers hated it, but the administration thought it was good for school spirit. tbh I kinda enjoyed the chaos, but looking back I don't understand how someone in their right mind could allow that.

[vkou]

If you assume that the primary purpose of the school is to produce compliant nationalists (Or people who are easily distracted by circuses), as opposed to education, this makes sense.

The pledge of allegiance is another one of those things, that were it taking place in a hostile country, would be mocked incessantly - as brainwashing.

[leetcrew]

it was actually a private school, so it's primary purpose was to satisfy its customers (the parents). in a way, that makes it even more baffling.

[asdff]

Why not punish the disruption instead of banning bodily function breaks?

[whimsicalism]

I agree that banning bathroom breaks is stupid. But it's not as easy as "punishing disruption"

a. Because turns out the constantly suspending students is actually not that effective if our goal is to educate those students

b. Because suspending students goes on a school's record and the central office in urban areas wants to keep suspensions low.

c. Because the way they punish the disruption is oftentimes more problematic for ordinary students

ie. My school implemented hall sweeps where all of the teachers would lock the doors to their classroom and security would come through the halls and collect students for detention, but it would oftentimes catch students who were doing things like going from their classroom to the library or something.

It was also pretty clearly racially biased. I remember vividly a black student arriving maybe 10 seconds after the bell for class, getting into the class, and having security guards come into the classroom to take her out of the class because she was late. The security guards knew that the affluent, white student's parents were more likely to throw a fit if their child was treated like that.

This was honestly the most valuable lesson from that school: well-meaning discussion about how to enforce/stop certain behavior in a meeting translates into super unreasonable enforcement actions by school security. I doubt this principle is unique to schools, but I am lucky to be wealthy enough to be shielded from the brunt of the law.

[asdff]

I don't think suspensions are the answer either since kids will just play video games at home. But what about in school suspensions? Doing your homework in a broom closet for the entire day without your phone or seeing your friends will quell disruptive behavior quick. It worked at my school doing just that.

[whimsicalism]

These schools do not always have the resources to monitor large numbers of suspended students, and it would also just lead to the exact same problems, unless students don't need to go to the bathroom anymore. They don't have enough rooms to put students on their own, so they have to put them in groups.

Your school was probably very different from mine.