It is time to abandon the rule for no-bathroom in the first and last 10 minutes of class.
The 10-10 bathroom rule that many teachers at Central High School follow is not a good policy.
Imagine you’re sitting in your classroom, trying to focus on the lesson, when suddenly you feel the urge to use the bathroom. You glance at the clock and see that it’s 10 minutes until the class ends. Therefore you know you can’t use the bathroom, but you ask anyway because you are desperate. The teacher says, no, we only have 10 minutes left; so you silently sit in your seat. You start to squirm, desperately waiting for the bell to ring. You bolt out of the classroom to use the restroom but when you walk in there are 10 girls already in the bathroom doing their thing and the stalls are all full.
So you leave and go to another bathroom, but this time this bathroom is locked and no one can go in there. With only 2 minutes left of the passing period you decide to go to class, that way, you aren’t late. You finally get to your class but still haven’t used the bathroom; you’ve now had to go for the last 15-20 minutes, though you know you at least have to hold it for another 10 minutes. When you finally do go after 10 more minutes your teacher will say something along the lines of, “You just had passing period,” or “Of course, you have to during my class.”
You get back from the bathroom and feel bad because you missed part of the lesson and you don’t really know what you’re supposed to be doing, but you don’t want to ask for help because your teacher most likely doesn’t want to just explain it to just you because you had to use the restroom.
I understand why this rule is in place but I believe as a high school student we should be able to make our own decisions, especially when it comes to using the restroom.
I know students who have had to use the restroom for four periods but can’t use it during passing periods and are scared to ask the teacher to let them. So they hold it until lunch. I think that this is sad and that we students should not have to feel this way to use the restroom. If it was my choice I would definitely change this rule and let us soon-to-be adults use the restroom whenever needed.
I honestly think that the school board and teachers like to be in control and they like to have all of this power over us students. Though my English teacher taught me power corrupts, while in that class we can’t use the restroom whenever needed because the teacher has the power to say no.
Image: No Restroom, No Change, No Phone by Paul Sableman on Flickr
The Pine Needle 