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Comment by lwkl | Hacker News Reader

Since I was a teenager I never asked to pee or drink in school. I just got up and told them: „I’m going to pee now.“

I see these things as my basic human rights. And nobody should accept having them restricted.

In the country where I live the school has the authority by law to be more restrictive and enforce their own rules. Which I see as necessary to some point. But I think we should teach kids and teenagers to make decisions on their own and take responsibility for their actions. And not just enforce arbitrary rules.

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When I was 9 I had an absolutely awful teacher (to the extent she'd refuse kids using the bathroom to the point where they'd pee themselves (it was the 80's)), I told my mum about it and her response was "If you need to go ask, if she says no, go anyway and I'll deal with the fallout".

It was my first lesson in dealing with unjust authority and that most authority relies on the principle that most people under it will do as they say most of the time.

A useful lesson and after that I saw asking to use the bathroom as a courtesy because I was going either way.

I was one of the kids who peed himself in class due to one of those teachers. I had asked three times to go. Ripe age of of 12 no less.

It destroyed my fear of and respect for arbitrary authority instantly so I look back on it as a good thing today. I realised that rather than my peers turning on me on a shame basis they turned on the teacher because it was going to be them next.

It also positioned me well for dealing with the somewhat backwards ideals in my own childrens’ school.

happened to me at age 7(?) - I remember the grade and room, just not the date.

it was one of those things that chipped away at my respect for authority - it didn't destroy it, but still dinged it. Peers still turned on me - no one thought "it could be me next". We were 7/8(?) - I'm not sure most people could reason that far ahead vs living in the moment.

What sticks with me is that we had an announcement earlier (few days or weeks earlier?) that no bathroom breaks would be given out because a few kids had 'abused the privilege' (stayed out of the room longer than they should have). So... someone else violates a trivially stupid 'rule', and my own life is negatively impacted, which is wholly unjust. That was my takeaway, which has stuck with me for ~40 years. I still remember a couple of the kids who'd been 'abusing' that privilege beforehand, and remember what impact they and that teacher had on me that day and beyond.

I think at the age of 7/8 your metric of success is tied strongly to how you control your body, probably due to all the reinforcement of this from years before. At 12 things were likely easier for me.

They use that ridiculous methodology now. For example my eldest's entire class was held back at the end of the day for 15 minutes due to one child's behaviour. Unfair and her ASD younger sister relies on her to get home and had a complete panic and breakdown over the routine change. Teachers surprisingly never available for comment after such things due to the layer of bureaucracy over everything. Formal complaint raised, pushed to the very end of their own self-inflicted process every time they screw up!

I had a similar experience in school, it still impacts me today. I don’t recognize authority for authority’s sake, only what I feel is reasonable and just. It’s liberating.

Yes, "discovering" that path is difficult when you're forced-fit into school at such a young and impressionable age.

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