I have a story that kinda fits! Never shared this before, but I’m sure many people have experienced something similar.
Anyway, this was long ago in kindergarten. We had one teacher who, for some strange reason, hated it when kids went to the toilet. She’d track who went to the toilet and ask us kindergardeners things like “didn’t you just go when I came in” or “why do you always need to go when I’m teaching”.
Oh and this is necessary context for later - our classrooms had louvered, transparent windows along the corridor, and the windows were usually kept open, so you could look in easily from the corridor.
Some of us figured out that it was easier to hold your crotch and make a pained expression every time we needed to go. We’d just say “I really need to go” and hop around and she’d relent. But after a few too many people did that she got angry and declared that nobody could go to the bathroom twice in her class and started writing down the names of kids who went to the bathroom. If your name was on the board you couldn’t leave the classroom again.
So one day, one of my brilliant classmates asked to go to the toilet, then brought his workbook and pencil out with him. When he came back, he stood outside the classroom listening to the teacher.
Our teacher asked him to come in. He said “but if I come in, I can’t go to the toilet later.”
Of course the teacher made him come in and changed the rules after that. But I’d like to think this kid became a lawyer.
even prisoners get to go to the bathroom lol. some teachers are just weird
Not Amazon warehouse employees, they’re tracked and rely on Gatorade bottles.
Some teachers like their power trip.
i’m sure many people can relate to teachers and bathroom permissions!
Wait, in kindergarten you guys had workbooks already?
Maybe “workbooks” was the wrong term. We had pages with the alphabet, “C is for cat” with a cat for you to color, etc.
Why would a teacher ban students from going to the bathroom? That’s a normal bodily function. What do they expect the kid to do?
As a teacher, I would always let kids go. Although depending on the situation, I might say “wait a minute until -other student - comes back” or “just listen to this instruction first so you know what to do”. You definitely get to know kids who ask to leave to get out of work, but rather than stopping them going, you need to work out why they are avoiding the work in the first place. Often it’s anxiety about the work being too hard, or they just need a sensory break because classrooms can be overwhelming. In those cases, it’s actually not that helpful to force them to stay in the situation anyway.
There are a lot of bad teachers unfortunately
We used to look up to our teachers as role models. It is sad what the education system has become.
