Published on 12, July, 2020
My daughter is autistic and in year 6. Yesterday 10 mins after lunch she said she felt her period and didn't have a pad on. She asked the teacher if she could go to the toilet and was told no she would have to wait until home time. My daughter said she whispered to her that she didn't have a pad on and it was a female reason. The teacher said she didn't need to know that and she should have dealt with it in her lunch break. She had to go back to her seat and bled all over her chair.
We have a similar rule at my school to encourage students to plan their time at break times...yes they e been to the loo and had a drink etc and are ready to learn.. but, I let people go to the toilet as sometimes it is needed... and as a female teacher I know that..
the teacher may have just been sticking to the rules so it might be a need to address the school policy rather than hang the teacher, then draw and quarter her...
I am a teacher too and I do think the breaks should be used for that. Each lesson is only 45 minutes anyway. Recently the school was in lock down because someone had reported a smell of crack in one of the toilets and some definitely occasionally use them for a smoke...
Kids do sometimes abuse the toilet thing, easy enough to suss if they come back laden with chocolates and sandwiches. Once a girl did say she was coming on in the class, once again this was just after an ample break....I remember periods usually do start early. The others were being cheeky, assuming I did not know know enough of their language to understand. So I did not let her go on that occasion. That one was eventually expelled......
If a child genuinely seems unwell I let them go. And to have a wee too. But if it always seems to happen before I set them a listening comprehension test I ask them to remain.
So I don't agree with lynch mobbing the teacher either, she may simply have been trying to establish boundaries. With teens there is always a tightrope between being strict enough and understanding enough and as someone said, the beleaguered teacher certainly is just human.
I don’t think that telling kids when they can and can’t use the toilet is the act of ‘establishing boundaries.’ I believe it is the act of teachers exercising their ‘absolute power’ to enforce a dictatorship.
The definition of a ‘Dictator’ is someone who wields their power in an oppressive manner. Which I think is a very accurate description of this teacher’s attitude and actions towards this little (and vulnerable) girl.
If the OP's daughter had always been asking to use the toilet in the past, there may have been some justification for what the teacher did, but, in this case, what happened was unjustifiable and cruel. Teachers are adults and they are hired to be able to make their own judgement calls.
Hi NAS36772,
I really like it when the older kids ‘abuse their right’ to use the toilet (perhaps not the crack smoking bit though) or when they stretch the uniform rules etc. As I think, in such a controlled and authoritarian environment as high school, it is good for kids to exercise their rebelliousness, to break these (in this case) actually quite harmless ‘rules.’ I think it is very good for their souls to disobey teachers in this way. Perhaps the reason they break the ‘toilet rules’ so often is because these are the only rules they are able to safely break in this environment? Why take this from them? Why not let them pretend to need the loo, and you pretend you believe them; why not give them this win in this small way, every day?
People are not machines, no?