"Bathroom Coupons" class management resource

This classroom management resource is intended as a cute, humorous way to deter students from constantly interrupting lessons with requests to go to the bathroom. I have found it to be quite effective when used as designed.

In my career, I have taught at multiple schools in several different countries, and I have noticed that certain schools (and not others) have a problem with students constantly asking to go to the bathroom during class. Of course, some of these requests are legitimate, but many of them are actually disguised forms of malingering; i.e. the student is just bored, or wants to use their cell phone.

As a teacher, I do not want to refuse legitimate requests for obvious humanitarian reasons, but at the same time, I want to deter frivolous requests. Therefore, I devised the “bathroom coupon” system. The idea is that students are each issued one coupon per quarter; they can turn in the coupon to visit the bathroom with “no questions asked”. I don’t allow them to use it during an actual lesson, i.e. when content is being delivered, but only when the class is working on a worksheet, lab, etc.

Also, I integrated the coupons with a preexisting “bonus credit” system such that if students don’t need their coupons, they can turn them in for five bonus points. Of course many variations on bonus point schemes are possible, but in my case I allowed students to accumulate bonus points in various ways, which would then be added to their grades for homework, worksheets, and labs at the end of the marking period, but never exams. (I think it is important to maintain the integrity of exams, so bonus work never counts for exam points in my classes, only for other forms of assessment.) If this is done, it gives the students an additional incentive to avoid bathroom visits during class, since they can save up the coupons to turn in for bonus points. In practice, I found that a “secondary market” in bathroom coupons developed, such that kids in great need of bonus points would acquire coupons (somehow) from other kids who didn’t need them; I allowed this since it served the overall purpose of limiting bathroom interruptions to the classes.

The coupons themselves feature the humorous cats, which originated with an advertisement for kitty litter. Two forms of the coupons are provided: a .pdf document which is straightforward to print, and an Excel document so that the coupons can be edited according to your specific needs.

One important note on printing the coupons: I recommend using an unusual patterned paper that is difficult to obtain, since otherwise kids might try to forge the coupons (think of them as a form of money; if they are too easy to copy, counterfeiters will emerge). In my case I used a very exotic scented stationery that was purchased in Thailand; the kids at my school in the USA never figured out where this paper came from or how to duplicate it!