Bathroom Visits

“There is a lot more to teaching than people realize” is part of what I suggested in my introduction to this blog. That’s certainly the case when it comes to students and teachers using a school bathroom. This is another situation that seems simple enough. Someone has to use the restroom so they get up and go. Oh, if it were only that simple.

I suppose that problems with students using the bathroom begin with when they can go. If kids can leave the classroom whenever they feel like it, they’ll be a crowd in the restroom in no time, with kids from different classes arranging to get together at a set time (no, I’m not kidding). Some students will also head to the bathroom numerous times throughout the day, whether for “legitimate reasons”, or to take a break from a certain subject, to avoid a test, etc. Because of situations like these, teachers come up with brilliant strategies to limit bathroom visits for their students. Sign out sheets, bathroom tags, scheduled visits, and limiting the number of visits per day are all tried and true strategies, but none work all of the time. I always had bathroom tags, but then a student would be out of the room for quite a while and other students would complain that they had to go also.

Bathroom “problems”, by the way, include many that haven’t changed in decades. Kids still climb on the stall walls, empty the soap dispenser all over, clog the toilet, break ceiling tiles, and bully other students. There are also a couple of other issues that I don’t want to add here- this is, after all, a child friendly blog. You may have noticed that I haven’t addressed classrooms that have their own bathroom. In my experience, this is more common in younger grades. As to middle school and high school bathrooms, I’m told that some of the same problems exist as I have mentioned, as well as many others.

Teachers using school bathrooms shouldn’t really be a problem, but there are two concerns worth mentioning. First, what does a teacher do if they need to use the restroom and there is no one to supervise their class so they can leave the room? Hopefully another adult is nearby, but not always. Do you just leave your class for a few minutes? I’m sure that’s always been an issue, but in the age we live in, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. The second problem is when adults use student restrooms. It’s usually not a concern, but as I already mentioned, it may be.

Tales From My Classroom…

As a principal, I worked with a teacher who had gotten into trouble with administrators over several issues, one of which was she hadn’t allowed certain students to use the bathroom when they asked because she was sure they didn’t need to go and were just trying to get out of class.

One of my third grade girls left art class with permission to go to the restroom down the hall. She was a “high spirited” student and when she got there, someone was already in a stall so she decided to see who it was by sliding under the door. It was a teacher and not a teacher who saw any humor in this.

Being one of the few male teachers in my school, I was the one who was asked to deal with any problems in the boys restroom. This was not as uncommon as you may think.

Sometimes a teacher will have bathroom tags that student takes with them to the restroom. They just leave the tag on the sink, the floor, or someplace else while they “take care of business”. I found this more than a little disgusting.

Decades of teaching have convinced me that flushing a toilet should be part of the school curriculum. Enough said.

I tried to have “common sense” bathroom rules in my classroom using tags but also making it clear that students should try to avoid going to the bathroom when I was teaching a lesson- unless it was an emergency. One student in my third grade class had an accident the first or second day of class because they weren’t sure what constituted an emergency. I felt awful for them.

A pet peeve of mine was when we were in the middle of a lesson and I asked a question pertaining to the topic. A student would raise their hand with the intent, I thought, to answer the question or contribute to the topic in some way. Instead it was “can I go to the bathroom”. That drove me crazy.

When I was an assistant principal, the principal showed me the bathroom in the hall to be used only by the two of us. As it turned out, there was no other bathroom for teachers on that side of the building so I left the door unlocked for others to use. I was reminded that this restroom was only for administrators and it was to remain locked.

What rules and/or procedures should be in place when it comes to students using a school bathroom?

What limitations can be placed on children, if any, and what consequences would be appropriate if there is inappropriate behavior in a school bathroom?

 

Bullying

 

If he hits you, hit him back…. Bullies are just looking for attention- ignore her and she’ll leave you alone….Tell the teacher….Maybe he just wants to be friends with you….If you stand up to a bully, she’ll back down.

Most of us growing up were affected by bullying in some way. Maybe we were bullied, maybe a good friend of ours was a victim of bullying, or maybe we were the bully. Regardless, bullying is one of the most harmful experiences a child in school lives through, and often is remembered well into adulthood.

Teachers and administrators, as well as parents, often communicate a simple strategy intended to help a child who is the victim of bullying. In my experience as a teacher and principal, something as simple as “if he hits you again, hit him back” just doesn’t work. The reasons for this range from social media to the levels of violence in society to the changes in family structure- most situations involving bullying now are more complicated and include a number of factors that didn’t exist when today’s adults were in school.

Tales From My Classroom…

When I was in middle school, there was a big kid who used to pick on a lot of us before school started. He shoved us around, put us in headlocks, twisted arms, etc. I remember not wanting to go to school because he stood by the bus doors waiting for us so we couldn’t run from him. I was pretty quick so I could usually get away, but I hated seeing friends get picked on- I just didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. Well, one day at dismissal, he came up and closed my locker as I was getting my stuff out to go home- another favorite past time of his. I guess I just lost it because I was so mad, I took this wooden horse I had just finished in shop class and hit him with it, breaking it on him. I then started shoving him and screaming at him all the way down the hall. Teachers were watching this spectacle, knowing that he had to have done something awfully bad for this little kid (I wasn’t the tough, macho guy I am now) to be shoving this big bully down the hall, and although he tried to look innocent, I don’t think anyone was fooled. That was the last time I ever had trouble with him. *The funny thing is, and I know it sounds like a sitcom episode, we became friends in high school.

When I was a principal, there was a parent who stopped in to visit once in a while who liked to brag about the time he put the high school principal up against a wall in his office. Was this an attempt at bullying?

One day, a student from another class approached me about one of my third graders. He said that my student took money or candy away from him at the end of the day when they were on the bus. The girl he named was always well behaved, never in trouble, and had lots of friends. Turns out he was telling the truth.

Were you ever bullied at school? What were the circumstances?

How did you handle the situation?

Was any help given to you by adults?