I Am Banning Water Bottles From My Classroom
A few years ago I wrote an article arguing that fidget spinners had no place in the classroom. It was a popular article, but the cost of writing a popular article is a few strongly negative responses. One blogger insisted that my hatred of fidget spinners was an attack on students with learning disabilities because—at the time—it was believed that giving distracting toys to such students would help them pay attention. That was five years ago, and fidget spinners have gone the way of slap bracelets, although theorists with no classroom experience continue to tell teachers in the trenches how to do their jobs.
As can be deduced from the title, this little essay is about my decision to ban water bottles from my classroom next year. It’s a free country, of course, and readers are free to leave whatever comments they like wherever this article is shared, but I would like to preface those comments by saying that the only contrary opinions on the matter that I really care about are those of fellow teachers. Headmasters and principals would do well to listen to their teachers on this matter because unless you’re in a classroom with a dozen students, all of whom have water bottle, you’re a bit out of the loop.
The loop is this: every teacher I know hates water bottles. If you’re not a teacher, you might think bringing a water bottle to class rather innocuous. Teachers bring cups of coffee to class, don’t they? Office workers sip from cans of Diet Coke while fielding phone calls, don’t they? How is it different for students to bring water bottles to class?
Such questions are fair, but they reveal a lack of experience. The fact of the matter is that many of the “water bottles” students bring to class are the size of small aquariums and made of metal, which means they are not subtle, discreet objects. So far as desks go, water bottles occupy a significant portion of real estate. Unlike dropping a pencil, knocking a water bottle off a desk is an event which brings the class to a standstill so that people can turn, look, and laugh. Last month, in thesis presentations at classical schools across the nation, a steady procession of water bottles were tipped over, clanged loudly, and distracted an entire auditorium people who were trying to pay attention to a very important argument about travel sports teams. Unscrewing the lid of a water bottle often involves audible grinding and squealing and when students fill their little aquariums with ice in the morning, lifting the two-pound bottle to their mouths noisily jostles all the cubes. Most water bottles are big enough that unscrewing the lid requires five or six turns, which means that—when you count the time to screw the lid back on—taking a sip from a Yeti can easily take half a minute.
For all these reasons, students with water bottles are absolutely nothing like teachers with coffee cups or receptionists with cans of Diet Coke. Today’s water bottle is a cartoonishly large, cartoonishly loud object. Unlike the teacher or the receptionist who have work to do, high school students are simply sitting and listening, which means they fidget often and when they do, they fidget with something which is big enough to disrupt the entire class.
Ask any teacher: water bottles are a scourge on the classroom.
For teachers, what is even more obnoxious than the noise of water bottles is the absurd attempt to justify them. Any teacher who bans water bottles from the classroom can expect a little mob of pearl-clutching students (and probably a few parents) to insist that their sons and daughters need to “stay hydrated.” As with the fidget spinner fad, our “need” for water bottles has a tissue-like connection to “science.” I put that word in quotes, because the science behind our need to “stay hydrated” is even thinner and more tawdry than “the science” behind wearing two masks. Remember that one? Most of the people claiming it’s important to “stay hydrated” are simply repeating something they heard a friend say over brunch.
I also put quotes around “stay hydrated” because “staying hydrated” is no longer about drinking a reasonable amount of water every day. “Staying hydrated” is now a euphemism for bringing a titanium punch bowl to class and loudly microdosing fluid every ten minutes. How much water is a student sipping from his punch bowl over the course of an hour? Four ounces? Six? Eight? At present, he is drinking this water in the most distracting, obnoxious manner possible. If he wants to “stay hydrated,” let him drink eight ounces of water between classes. Let him drink a pint of water at lunch.
Be reasonable. If you’re going to argue water bottles are necessary in the classroom, how did we do without them for centuries? How did we do without them fifteen years ago? What sort of problems have we eliminated since bringing water bottles in the classroom? Every teacher can certainly tell you about the problems we’ve created since bringing them in.
Water bottles are the sort of cultural clutter which slowly accrues in the classroom and must be tidied up from time to time. It was fidget spinners five years ago. Five years from now, some new science-backed distraction will creep into our classrooms. Theorists and zeitgeist surfers with no classroom experience will express outrage that experience and common sense proves them wrong. Reasonable administrators and teachers will resist the new foolishness, reliably offended people will be offended, pitch a fit, and then everyone will move on. If you want to be a teacher, you don’t need a steel water bottle. You need a steel stomach.
Joshua Gibbs
Joshua Gibbs teaches online classes at GibbsClassical.com. He is the author of How To Be Unlucky, Something They Will Not Forget, and Blasphemers. His wife is generous and his children are funny.
16 thoughts on “I Am Banning Water Bottles From My Classroom”
Well said Joshua
Water bottles have become a fad. Our ancestors did not have water bottles as an appendage. They drank from home taps as needed and none of them died if dehydration. Comercialization of water and water bottles has extracted value from our pockets
You ever heard of a healthy person before?
I even see people bring. Bottles to church now days not in the past.
I will not stand for this blatant attack on refreshment and hydration! It’s time for students to unite and to come together and march for our rights. I am calling all students in the United States to have a walkout for water bottles on Friday, March 10th at Noon. We must stand together so we are not torn apart from this foul rhetoric. My water bottle is for my nourishment and does not detract from learning. If anything, proper hydration enhances learning! Others who cause such distractions can be dealt with on their own (I suggest Chinese Water Torture) but I am not giving up my rights. JOIN WITH ME AND let us keep our rights!
Many schools permit clear, plastic water bottles but do not allow the metal thermos. This supports hydration, enabling students what their body needs. The desire to be allowed metal thermos when given a option in asking for a want over a need. Considering bombs have made their way into schools with the use of metal thermoses and other substances that cannot be detected as easy, for the safety of all…it is understandable why the metal thermos should not be permitted in classes.
What other urges are – according to experts of progress and liberation from the omnipresent oppression of our bodies still persisting within old narratives not yet deconstructed totally – best to be addressed immediately, for health and well-being? Delayed gratification is simply too hard and cruel, beside being unnecessary. I will leave you with this question, for answering it would be vulgar.
The ubiquitous WATER BOTTLE is a sure sign of our spiritual flaccidity, for the destructive dogma of staying hydrated has now drowned any sense of self-restraint. The adults, fearful above all of appearing authoritative, cannot bring themselves to ban the hydro-flasks from the classroom, as if students cannot function for forty-five minutes without their gullets being gratified by gulping and guzzling gallons of water–or is it vodka? The teachers, whether unfolding the lesser mysteries of multiplication or the greater mysteries of metaphysics, must now compete with heads tilted back so that fluid freely flows through every esophagus, and mouths once used for the higher purposes of parsing and persuasion are scaled-down to sluicing, while ears hear only the clanging and crashing of the metal monsters as they frequently fall to the floor.
Hello, I teach 2nd grade at a Tier 1 public school and water bottles live at the back of the classroom next to the sink and (ironically) water fountain combo. At desks kids fiddle with them and they end up banging, dropping, and spilling.
I understand and respect your point of view.
The students in my care need water so I encourage water…..not chemy sports drinks, which in my opinion is the real problem.
I do understand how the water bottles are a distraction. However, in the school I work at we are currently trying to figure out how to get more kids to bring one!
Our issue is that the drinking water in the building comes from water cooler dispensers in the hallways, not water fountains. Top that with the waste of supplying cups whether paper or plastic to the students and consistently running out of cups.
Some teachers try putting the kids name on a cup and have them reuse it as often as possible, (probably past the point of sanitary). Most teachers set up a counter or tray for the water bottles in the classrooms.
I do remember water fountains as a kid, and I Hated the taste of tap water even back then.
The point of the water bottle is to keep your mouth off the drinking fountain (it’s incredibly unsanitary), and to stave off a huge line for drinking fountains causing students to be late for class. It seems like the best way to deal with this is to create water bottle rules and guidelines. Create a school rule about the maximum size of bottle allowed. Then encourage teachers to set classroom rules about when water bottles are allowed out, for example the first 5 minutes of class, or during free reading time. And most importantly explain to parents and students what the current problem is and why your implementing it. We had a backpack ban at our Jr High, but not the other schools and it infuriated parents and kids. Finally someone explained that it was because those classrooms are so small that kids were tripping over these giant backpacks, the kids were then allowed to carry small draw string backpacks to class, so they didn’t have to go to there lockers between every class, (It’s a large school).
The point is that communicating issues and thinking carefully about the pros of cons of things (from all points of view), can alleviate a lot of problems.
I have been teaching elementary school for 27 years. In the last 10 years we somehow need children to be drinking water whenever they want to. Unfortunately, as the article describes, the bottles become toys and sources of distraction. I had about half my class have to use the bathroom during class 1-3 times a day. Students have enough time to drink water before school, at recess and lunch and after school. My class has to keep water bottles on the shelf outside the room. On hot days, the bottles come in but are kept on the lunch cart. No drinking in class! No one has died of dehydration yet!
Well said. Even a small table within the classroom for water bottles allows access during breaks.
*Not all students are created equal. Some are kind, thoughtful and studious. Some are just plain disruptive. Water bottles made of metal many times are used as weapons against other students.
Water bottles spill, make messes and are disruptive when used by those making unnecessary noises and slurping. Being disruptive in class is a Citizenship issue. You need hydration? Like Cool Hand Luke said: “I’m shakin it here boss!” Which means that you should place your backpacks, cell phones and water bottles by the side of the classroom and ask for permission to hydrate or call your mom.
I’m no longer in school but if a teacher did this, I’d report them. Many people NEED water due to medical issues. Dry mouth is a very common issue. I experienced severe dry mouth that made me unable to talk due to a side effect of one of my depression medications. A teacher did what you did, I reported them, and guess who was allowed to bring a water bottle? Me, and everyone else. You should probably step out of your bubble and learn that just because you don’t have a certain issue, doesn’t mean others don’t.
I’m sure medical needs can be addressed I dividualized. On the flip side, because you have a disability doesn’t.mean everyone else does.
This is why the world is a terrible place to live! Dealing with distractions is a part of life. How many Zoom meetings have people been on where someone forgets to mute. Or has a coworker in the cube next to you that is constantly shuffling or sighing. The solution isn’t to ban everything. Just freaking deal with it! I refuse to believe that teachers are experiencing an astonishingly large amounts of drops. And if everyone looks then continue teaching and instruct the students to ignore it. That’s a good life lesson. And if you take the water bottles away they will fidget with something else. I can’t tell the guy next to me to get a new flipping chair that doesn’t squeak! Or to take a stupid allergy pill! Deal with it.