A discussion of a major theme in a book, a explanation of a difficult math problem, a speaking activity, all of these thing can happen in the less than 10 minutes. The same amount of time it takes for a routine bathroom break.

Every day, in every class, any number of students leave the classroom to use the bathroom. It sounds a little ridiculous, but these bathroom breaks are hurting the learning environment of classrooms. When students take bathroom breaks, they often use them to do a multitude of things, fill their waters, talk to their friends, and wander the halls. With classes happening every other day, it’s harder for teachers to track how often their students are leaving.

With every class, 2-3 people at least are leaving. Not only are those students missing out on learning in the classroom, but the entire class is losing out on what the missing students would have added to whatever in-class discussion they are doing.

In an effort to solve this problem, certain upper school teachers are restricting the amount of bathroom breaks a student can make a semester. This seems like a logical solution-almost. Allowing a student to only taken a few bathroom breaks a semester treats the students as if they can decide when they need to go to the bathroom. But in truth, a student’s needs are unpredictable.  A teacher can never know when a student just got their period, or hasn’t had a chance to go to the bathroom all day. Instead of restricting students bathroom breaks, teachers should try and reform their policies in other ways. Either by allowing time during class for all students to use the bathroom, or allowing all students to go at the same time, or by making their own policy. Whatever they decide to go, teachers should try and create policies that find a happy medium between the two extremes.

Read the other side here.