My school tried locking us out of the bathrooms. Retaliation followed.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

You need to realize that students are going to use so many different means to test your authority every day. You need to pick your battles. By saying that bathroom access is one of the battles you want to fight, you come off as petty and power hungry.

Here's the thing, and this is why it's so damn frustrating to even try to have these discussions on reddit. I KNOW THIS SHIT. I'm not trying to have the bathroom battle in my classroom. I'm trying to discuss the issue that's been raised in the thread here. I say, multiple times in my comments, that I'm not a teacher who limits access to the bathroom. That there are better ways to address these problems.

What I was trying to do is explain how a teacher might be thinking about these things, and how it's not as simple as the teacher being petty and power hungry (even if they obviously come off that way). People get so knee-jerk in their reactions when it comes to anybody perceived as defending a teacher in these discussions, that they don't seem to actually read or consider what's being said.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

Even though I agreed that it is an unnecessary exertion of authority, said you can think of better solutions, and started the comment with the words "I agree there are usually better ways to take care of it" ... right off the bat. I'm looking at the comment I made above, and I count at least 4 or 5 times within that comment where I agree that it's not the best way to go about it.

edit: Usually I try to give the benefit of the doubt, and put poor communication on my own shoulders. But this time? I'm sorry, no. That's not what I said at all.

bacon_n_legs · 2 days

Interestingly enough, the progression you describe is exactly what my example intended to convey.

bacon_n_legs · 2 days

I'm not an elementary school teacher. I'm secondary math. But reading this that sounds like a rather tough problem for a first grader.

Sounds like a case of "trying too hard" with manipulatives. Manipulatives are supposed to make things easier, not more complicated. Here is what I would say to the student:

"Okay, this word problem tells me there are 9 balloons. Some are red, and some are purple. So let's put down some red and purple blocks, and they will represent the balloons in the word problem. All together we need 9 of them. So, for example I can have 5 red balloons, and 4 purple balloons. That would make 9 because 5 + 4 is 9. Or I can just count out with the tiles and see that I have 9 of them."

This shows the students physically what the first two sentences of the word problem mean. Next I might ask them what other combinations they can have. 6 of one color, 3 of the other. 7 and 2. 1 and 8. Then I reread the third sentence of the problem. "Okay, I'm looking for a combination of red and purple balloons where there are three less purple balloons than red balloons." ... let them process that a moment, then continue... "another way to say that would be that there are three more red balloons. So of those combinations we just came up with, do any of them have three less purples than reds?"

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

As a teacher who reads them, who knows a lot of other teachers who read them, I think you might want to alter the absolute nature of your statement.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

Do you really want to be the potty police in that matter, or would you rather identify and address the larger problem?

You seem to think I'm advocating for being a bathroom nazi as the sole solution to the problem. I'm not even saying it's a good reaction to the problem. I'm only asking people to take a moment to consider the situation from the perspective of a teacher.

You're right. It's a symptom of a larger problem that needs to be addressed. But addressing the immediate problem and addressing the larger problem that causes it are not mutually exclusive courses of action.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

perhaps there's something that can be done to stop this in the first place.

Like? ... and I would again ponder how these things you speak of seem to exclude also fixing the immediate problem on campus.

ChocolateGraham · 2 days

It's less about them being dumb, and more about their dumbness causing harm to society.

I link to this often, but I think anybody who doesn't understand why atheists express displeasure and anger at religious people should give it a watch:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2011/11/28/why-are-you-atheists-so-angry-kepticon-4/

Even if you disagree, at least watching the video will give you a better idea where we are coming from.

mczbot · 2 days

It does sound vaguely familiar. But I usually chalk that up to the topic being beaten to death. Have you see this exact posting before?

camopdude · 2 days

Deleted, but yet another person drastically overstating r/atheism's presence on the front page. How horrible it must be for people to see one or two posts they don't like on the front page. No wait, I see submissions I don't like all the time. It's not horrible.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

How do you propose addressing the problem, and how is limiting the opportunities students have to do this kind of thing doing "nothing" to actually stop the problem? Schools can't prevent students from being robbed down the street or somewhere else, but I don't understand where you can be coming from if you think trying to make it harder for students to do it on campus is completely uncalled for.

Like I said before -- disagree if you want, but acting like there is no reasoning behind the situation described just seems dishonest.

Gemini4t · 2 days

Be angry, sure. But when circumcision is extremely common, viewed as medically preferable and not mutilation (and presented as such by doctors) I don't blame my parents for having the procedure done. I blame a lot of other things, but not my parents.

latenightstoner · 2 days

Religion and belief in god are two separate things. I could believe in god, but not worship, and not belong to any religion.

latenightstoner · 2 days

Do athiests believe in higher intelligent life forms?

You mean aliens that are smarter than us? I don't hold a positive belief in any specific such aliens, no. I would not at all be surprised if we found some. Okay. I would be surprised if we found some in my lifetime. But I would not be surprised to learn that they exist out there, somewhere.

What do yall think specifically happens to our conscienceness when we die?

It ends. Your consciousness is not an entity. It is an experience. Death is the end of that experience. I suppose that answers your next question as well.

koryp924 · 2 days

It's a good argument, but it would be stronger with some examples. "I can look to the Bible and validate the belief that it's okay for me to own slaves."

Gemini4t · 2 days

Why? They can't uncircumcise you and it was probably SOP when you were born.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

AND supplying additional info just in case.

That was actually my main intent jumping into the discussion to begin with. To encourage students with medical issues to put it on file. Having it on file means situations will happen less often, and it empowers students when these situations do come up. So if a teacher is a dick who ends up making the kid piss their pants you have that much more ammunition.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 2 days

I agree that there are usually better ways to take care of it.

Denying access to the bathroom is an unnecessary exertion of authority.

It is. I want to point out though that students who come into the classroom looking for power struggles tend to find them. The teacher is just trying to handle things, and more often than not is not on a power trip. And most teachers who are on a power trip are doing so because they (mistakenly) think exerting full authority on the classroom is the best way to keep it running smoothly so people can learn.

There are better ways to handle it -- but put yourself in the shoes of a teacher for a moment. You only have students for 50 minutes of the day, and you allow students to go during the first few minutes of class while the class is getting situated and starting things up, you also encourage them to go between classes if they are able to, or during more convenient times of the day.

You realize that most of the people asking to go to the bathroom in your class aren't doing so because they have to go. You realize that some of them are going to meet their boy/girlfriend (you overhear them talking about it), some are walking the halls or visiting other classrooms, and almost every student is taking too long out of the room when they do go. You're sending about half of your class out the revolving door every class period. And they are asking to go during your lessons, one after another. Not only are these students missing face time in the classroom, the constant string of students wanting to go disrupts your ability to teach the students who are there. So you need to address the issue somehow. You'd be a bad teacher if you didn't.

So what do you do? I'm sure you can probably think of some decent solutions that don't involve kids pissing their pants. I can, too. But I recognize that teachers who stop letting kids go during their class aren't necessarily just power tripping. They're trying to limit distractions, perhaps avoid some problems, and get through the day.

There's this trend I've noticed where students come into the classroom, or any given scenario involving a school or classroom setting, and they are looking for uses of authority to complain about. And particularly on reddit here anybody who tries to even halfway explain the other side of that coin is shot down as somebody on a mad power trip trying to smack down the students.

Case in point -- the bathroom in the OP is probably locked because the toilets are broken from being clogged up. But the mob assumes it's just a power struggle. Granted for many it's based on their own experiences in school, where schools really have been way too strict on bathroom trips. But the whole discussion just becomes a one sided lynch mob that isn't interested in hearing the other side explained.

edit: .. and comments like this that are just insults are upvoted, I assume because of the "smack down" they put on the awful teacher, while my reply pointing out that I didn't say either of those things gets downvoted. I don't care about my karma score, but when I see this kind of voting I shake my head and wonder why I even bothered to try to discuss the issue.

somesonofabitch · 3 days

It's funny that people who really understand evolution are capable of making a better argument for ID than most ID proponents.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 3 days

On one hand you say the teacher was right if there was no note on file.

That's... really not what I said at all. You have a reading comprehension problem.

somesonofabitch · 3 days

You can edit this into the text of your original submission, and that might be better!

somesonofabitch · 3 days

A hallmark of design would be when something is arranged in an improbable or counter-intuitive way that suggests an intended purpose. Particularly, if something is arranged in a way that it would probably not come to naturally. For example a rubber mallet. The materials that make up a rubber mallet would not find themselves in that configuration in that condition through any known natural (read: unguided) means. Then, we can conceive of the use that the mallet has, based on our own experiences and the evidence. We find the mallet next to a bunch of tacks, and there are tack shaped indentations in the mallet, and there are tacks nailed into the wall near by.

Hallmarks of design.

Without evolution by natural selection, the eyeball certainly looks like it was designed! But once you uncover that natural process by which the eyeball can arise, the hallmarks of design we see on the eyeball stop being anything of the sort. Particularly when that evolutionary process explains the 'design' of the eyeball better than the alternatives.

Sergeant_Twinkie · 3 days

The parents told the teacher. Get over yourself.

I see you like to ignore things that don't confirm your established image.

I'm going to assume, though, that the teacher was just being a jerkwad and deserved it.

.. and from a comment I made further down, that I assume you've read..

That teacher should really know better. No excuse. It wasn't clear to me from your earlier comment whether this particular incident happened after your parents were making it clear, or if they were making it clear because of this incident.

So, yeah... I'm failing to see why I need to get over myself based on this.

That is as easy as asking the doctor to give you a note saying that as a human you have to pee sometimes.

You're ignoring the context again. I'll repeat it:

If students are abusing bathroom privileges and it's interfering with the ability to actually teach those students in the classroom it can be reasonable to draw the line and say no unless you have a medical issue on file.

As a teacher I tend to allow students to go to the restroom. Often I'll ask if they can wait. I'm not somebody who will sit there and make kids piss their pants. I also know that bathroom trips are regularly abused in some classrooms, and teachers would be remiss in their duties if they didn't try to address that problem when it comes up.

kencabbit

TROPHY CASE

kencabbit

TROPHY CASE

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