By Catherine Montoya-Quiroz
As a senior, one of the issues I’ve encountered at Galileo is with a number of teachers I’ve had who have exercised way too much control over their students, especially when it comes to allowing students to leave the class. When students experience this kind of behavior from teachers, it can make the students feel more apprehensive about approaching the teacher, and add unnecessary stress for them.
When a student is in class, they might need to step out of the classroom for a variety of reasons. However, the teachers have a lot of power when deciding whether or not to let the student exit the class. I remember one teacher that handed out passes at the beginning of the semester and told the class that those were the passes that allowed the students to go to the bathroom. The passes were limited, meaning that once the students wasted the meager amount of passes, they could no longer go to the bathroom unless they somehow found a way to obtain more passes.
Another teacher would make the students that exited the classroom hand him/her their phones. If no phone was given, the student was not permitted from exiting the classroom. It seemed like a really unfair rule as a lot of the students would not want to give their phone to the teacher, and prefer to wait until after the class to use the restroom (which can be harmful for the body). The students’ reluctance to hand the teacher their phone is rooted in the belief that if anything were to happen to their phone, the teacher would not be held responsible despite the fact that the teacher was the one to collect the phone.
This is not to say that all teachers are very strict about letting students out of class, I’ve had other teachers who allowed students to leave anytime they needed to. But I believe a teacher’s ability to force students to stay in the classroom should be limited, as some teachers use their power in a way that negatively impacts the students. In some instances, I have seen teachers deny their students the ability to exit the classroom in order to use the restroom simply because the teacher was annoyed with the class or a particular student.
My suggestion to regulate too many students and prevent teachers from going overboard with their power is for students to be able to exit the classroom at any time they want – as long as they sign a check in/out sheet. In the check out sheet, the student would have to write their name, time, and reason for the student leaving the class. This way students could leave the room and not disrupt class time by informing their teacher that they had to step out for a moment.
One thing teachers may forget is that there could be many reasons as to why a student would leave the classroom. For example, a student might be feeling overwhelmed in class and have to take a step out. Or maybe the student has to go to the bathroom or wellness center. Students have a lot of things going on in their lives, and the stress of this might affect their health and wellbeing. Students are not two dimensional. Students, much like adults, sometimes need to take a step out and simply breathe and relax.
I understand that teachers may be worried that their students are out fooling around and using the brief break time to be on their phones or roam the halls, but all of the students should not have to suffer just because a small group of students are fooling around. The teachers should be more trusting of their students and not forbid students from exiting in class, especially if they really have to step outside for an urgent/unexpected matter.
