[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.