being an adult now, it's so weird seeing how schools were so overly punitive. why not treat kids decently like in college early on? even in kingergarten i'd understand 'you can use the bathroom now if you want but either way you have to learn the alphabet'
Because students take advantage (i mean we all did im one way or another). The younger the kids, the more parents (and the law) treat the school as responsible for the student and their supervision.
That being said, in my opinion access to a bathroom is a basic human right.
What kind of stuff did your classmates get up to? I'm from Europe and we don't have hall passes or gates at doors (etc.) and the students don't get up to bad stuff. The worst I've seen is wet toilet paper on the walls. Or is this some kind of an "If you're treated like a prisoner, you will act like a prisoner" kind of thing?