The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

Bathroom passes: it’s our business

Graphic by Audrey Chou.

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

There’s no getting around it. It’s out of our control.

No matter how hard we try, we can’t decide when we are going to go to the bathroom or when the urge hits.

Several teachers have created their own policies about going to the bathroom during class. Some teachers don’t question students, while others write down the time we leave and the time we return.

We are in high school now, and we are well aware of when we need to use the bathroom and when we don’t. So what’s the deal with all of these bathroom policies?

Bathroom passes are the most aggravating of the policies. The fact that some teachers are implementing a system of physical bathroom passes is absurd. Not only are teachers limiting the number of times a student can go to the bathroom, but for some teachers the unused bathroom passes can be turned in at the end of a grading period for extra credit.

With this policy, it’s almost as if the teacher is grading the student based on their ability to control their bodily functions. As far as I’m concerned, this is not part of the curriculum.

I understand where teachers are coming from with this idea, but I think their reasoning is flawed. When students “go to the bathroom” and walk around the halls instead of taking care of their business, that is their own loss.

There is a certain point when we must become responsible for our own actions. When students ask to leave the classroom, it is their responsibility to make up the work that we missed.

When a student asks to go to the bathroom, no questions should be asked and the student should be able to leave freely.

When teachers ask students if they can wait to leave the room, tell a student they can’t go to the bathroom, or ask how long they are going to be, this makes them extremely uncomfortable.

Whatever happens in a bathroom is a student’s personal business and a teacher shouldn’t be intruding on that.

Some things are meant to be private, and going to the bathroom is a major one of those things. Everybody has different reasons for going to the bathroom, and it is our choice whether we want to share these actions with other people.

A teacher is an educational leader, not a bathroom monitor. Some teachers feel as if a strict bathroom policy benefits the students, because students lose part of the classroom experience when they go to the bathroom.

While this is a valid argument, a student’s need to go to the bathroom should not be put into question at all. It is a bodily function that we can only control to a certain degree.

It’s inspiring that some teachers care so much about the classroom experience of their students. However, in the end it is the student’s responsibility to decide when to go to the bathroom, and how long to stay in the bathroom.

The solution? It’s simple. Don’t question. If a student asks to go to the bathroom during class, no questions should be asked and no passes should be distributed.

A high school student is well aware of when it is appropriate to go to the bathroom during class. If a student misses an important lesson, so be it. It is our responsibility to make up the work we miss—and not to wet our pants. —and not to wet our pants.