We've all been there. At 18 years old, we were eligible to play the lottery, vote in presidential elections, and even be drafted into the military. When we blew those candles, signifying our right of passage from one age to the next, we gained a newfound sense of independence, new privileges, and new responsibilities to bear. We took the next step to becoming functional, independent members of society, and yet, we still needed to ask our teachers if we were allowed to go to the bathroom.
It's a very awkward position to be in, as students are granted the privileges (aside from alcohol, but that's a different issue) of being an adult, yet are still treated like children. Yes, I get it; schools need to have rules in order to be stable and to have some sort of structure. However, I can't help but think that schools go a bit overboard in their attempt to retain this stability. It is hypocritical that an organism meant to foster the development of children into mature adults inherently inhibits that development via arbitrary rules and convention that don't apply outside of public school's authoritarian and non-democratic space. Here is just a sample of some of those ridiculous rules:
1. Needing to carry a "hall pass" to go to the restroom
This was insulting. Why should I need an arbitrary piece of paper to do something my body has to naturally do? Should we start issuing breathing passes? II understand why this system was put in place, but it was a really poor solution to a relatively nuanced problem of students getting out of class to go to the bathroom. For one, students could simply lie about the times they signed out to take the pass to go to the bathroom, as well as when they came back from the bathroom. Sure, teachers would know if there was a repeat offender, but typically, it was difficult to detect if students didn't make skipping class a habit.
The other major problem with hall passes was that it limited students who legitimately had to use the bathroom from using the facilities. If you had to go to the bathroom and there weren't any hall passes, you were just screwed. There wasn't enough time to go between classes, so you just had to hold it in and pray that you'd get to your next class early enough to snatch up the lavatory pass. This system was just ineffective and inefficient, making it one of the stupidest rules that I just had to live with and accept during high school.
2. Not being able to use our cell phones during lunch
I'm not sure if this was common in other schools, but in my high school, we weren't allowed to use our phones during lunch at all. If one of the poor teachers assigned to lunch patrol saw a phone on you, you could kiss it goodbye. It didn't matter what reason you had it out; their justification was that you could be using it to help a friend cheat on an exam. Taking a picture of some notes from a friend that you missed during class? Confiscated. Using it to tell your parents that you'll be right out for your dentist appointment? Confiscated. Trying to get homework done? Confiscated. The policy was unforgiving and hinged upon the flawed assumption of what someone "might be" doing. It ends up blaming the device instead of trying to limit the actual problem. Cheating manifests itself in far more ways than sending a friend a text message, making this rule ineffective.
3. Zero-tolerance policies
I understand the intention behind this; it's an attempt to curtail violence as much as possible. However, good intentions don't always translate into good policy. While in theory, a zero-tolerance policy *should* deter kids from picking fights, it leaves kids that wind up in fights no outlet of defending themselves. What are they supposed to do, just sit and cower in fear of getting in trouble as another student hits them? It's ironic that a country so rooted in the visions of the "frontier man" and the idea of self-defense would allow its students to be subject to such a draconian, legalistic, and black-and-white policy. They've been shown to actually make schools unsafe, and compartmentalize issues that ought to be viewed as a spectrum of circumstances. Zero-tolerance policies are some of the most ridiculous, backward rules I've ever seen, and I hope to cover them in greater depth in future articles
4. No VPNs
This is probably the most rational of all of these crazy rules, but one that I think is still worth talking about. In order to understand why it's necessary to use a VPN, it's important to understand that a lot of high schools use filters in order to limit information available to students on school computers. These filters are designed to block out games, inappropriate websites, and social media in an attempt to keep students productive.
However, this censorship can, and oftentimes does, go too far. For example, in my school, I was unable to search up "Analytical Geometry," and websites with foreign domains (such as Canadian or Mexican domains) were blocked. This was problematic, because we'd often have to do research for classes such as AP Comparative Government, and all of the best websites would be blocked.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and students found loopholes and exploits in the firewalls the school created. It was a constant race to try to outsmart the filter, just so that students could access information that they needed to pass their classes. To try to discourage students from exploiting the firewall, schools banned VPNs, a way of accessing this outside information. Was it a good idea in theory? Questionable. Did it stop kids from trying to access these other websites? Absolutely not.
No bottle flipping
This is probably one of the most bizarre rules I've ever seen. While it wasn't in effect while I was in high school, the craze of water bottle flipping induced many to try the phenomenon soon after I left. Apparently, it caught on so much at my school that they had to institute a rule to discipline students following the trend. It makes some sense, as water bottle flipping could be distracting in the hallways and in class, but it's just something that's so oddly specific that I can't help but shake my head at it.
Did you have any crazy rules in your school? If so, leave them in the comments below!
