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Which may encourage kids to "hold it". Which can lead to the problems Goat mentioned and other fun things like pelvic pain and bladder infections. It also discriminates against kids with the legitimate need to go often. (Yes. There are medical conditions that require that.) So the child who should be going when he feels the need to is holding it in hopes of getting some dumb prize. Or he's holding it in because he knows the teacher doesn't want him going and she's glaring at him when leaves. Or he's holding it in because he used up his passes. Then he has to explain his medical condition to the teacher. Which he should never have to do because his medical condition is a privacy matter protected by federal law.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb, IMHO.
A kid with a pelvic/bladder infection (other issues) probably needs to go to the clinic. And I doubt that a small toy is going to be enough incentive to "hold it" if they are in pain. Masking the illness of a child by allowing others to act ill, does not help a sick child.
If a child is acting ill like that, send them to the clinic. The clinic can then either call the parent or send the kid back to class with a note if it is determined that they need to make more frequent trips to the bathroom. The medical/behavioral details could remain private.
Sorry. I guess I wasn't clear. I meant not going when you need to can cause bladder infections and pelvic pain.
But we are talking about 11-12 yos here. The can go before school, during lunch, on the way to special and afterschool. That means at most they are being asked to "wait" 2 hrs or so. For the days they cannot go before school, at lunch, or on the way to the specials, they have the emergency passes. I cannot comprehend why that would cause a UTI in a 12 yo unless they have another medical issue, in which case they should be excused.
Sorry. I guess I wasn't clear. I meant not going when you need to can cause bladder infections and pelvic pain.
Sorry, I misunderstood . But in general, I think that there are enough bathroom breaks during the school day that this really shouldn't be an issue.
Kids aren't expected to sit at their desks for hours and hours on end. They move from P.E. to Art to Music to Lunch, etc. and they visit the bathroom each time. I would be concerned if I found out that one of mine was frequently having to leave class to use the potty...
Having witnessed the domino effect one child has leaving to go to the bathroom in school...I think the teacher is within her rights to do that. Obviously if a child has an issue and has to have more access than that, she needs to accommodate that but for most kids they don't NEED to go to the bathroom that often during the day.
When our daughter was young her teacher gave her a punishment of " no bathroom during the day"
When I talked to the teacher and went in to her class. She told me " the children chose the punishment,not her." When I explained that she could get a bladder problem......she went " well, if she has a medical problem." I was stunned by her lack of knowledge of the consequences of this kind of punishment.
Many years later when I saw her in a store with three children of her very own, I wondered how she would have felt if they had this punishment.
Our daughter went up to her and kindly greeted her. From a distance I could only look and think about that clash from the past.
I knew it would take her having a family of her own to come to her sences.
I almost stopped at the principles office on my way out. It was a time when I was 8 months pregnant and just not in the mood for a confrontation.
Sometimes lessons are learned as one grows. She was a teacher with some growing to do.
BTW....This was first grade.
Last edited by Summering; 01-19-2012 at 04:41 PM..
Reason: add
I might add. She is one who always needed the bathroom quite often.......and.......
still does to this day.
Checked out from head to toe. This is how she was and is currently.
I'd be in that school in a heartbeat. If the teacher isn't smart enough to distinguish between kids who are "abusing" the bathroom to kids who legitimately need to go, she shouldn't be teaching. My wife had a teacher like this in Catholic school and her parents waged a war over it. We've always told our kids, if you have to go, go. If the teacher says no, or in this case you used all of your "vouchers", go anyway and let mom and dad deal with the consequence. I'm not having my kid hold it until they blow a kidney or have an accident based on some draconian policy.
And how is a teacher to do that? Feel their bladder to see how full it is?
I'm a teacher and I'm going to a voucher system starting next semester. I get between 3-6 bathroom requests per hour. It's, usually, the same kids who don't even have the consideration to wait until an appropriate time to ask. I'll be in the middle of a demo and a hand will go up and the question will be "Can I go to the bathroom?"
Vouchers will work because the kids who don't abuse the system will have their vouchers if they really need them.
Honestly, everyone knows that the news is sensationalized, and important details are intentially left out to give stories controversy- and headlines are written to sway the reader's thinking, as in this one with the use of the word LIMITS. I am confident, as an intelligent human being, that the students had other clear, scheduled, suggested opportunities to use the bathroom. They were not cut- and-dry limited to 3 bathroom uses per week. Yes, I am a teacher, and I know that students, especially at the age of 10 or 11 will choose to use the bathroom right in the middle of important instruction, or they will start a chain of bathroom use during transitions, which will delay starting the next lesson if "limitations" are not work into expectations. As SprinfieldVA mentions above, giving students an additional 3 vouchers per week, in addition to other opprtunities to go to the bathroom, may supply some data to help a teacher evaluate her students' true bathroom needs. If the lore of trading in vouchers for tickets that translates to purchasing prizes from a prize box prevents a student from using a voucher when he/she really should that student is going to have an accident before a "kidney bursts", and a fifth grader is old enough to be held responsible for making such judgement calls.
There is more than meetd the eye here, just as with any news story. This teacher even sent her plan to administration for approval before putting ot into implementation, and was not met with any resisteance. Live and learn. In the future, (if this hype doesn't cause her to lose her job, and/or taste for teaching) perhaps she'll send home details and get parental approval if she wants to pilot an idea in her classroom.
I told my older son if he needed to use the bathroom at school, get up and go and I'll deal with it later. I consider this teacher a monster. I get so tired of hearing them cry about too many kids in the classroom because we had 30 to 35 kids and one teacher, one competent teacher. Giving rewards for delaying going to the bathroom? This teacher is inhumane and needs to become a prison matron because at least there, she can be reported and dealt with in a timely manner rather than pushing her insanity on growing minds!
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. But in general, I think that there are enough bathroom breaks during the school day that this really shouldn't be an issue.
