I literally know three people it's happened to lol, and I'm just a person with no kids who has spent as little time in schools as possible. One time it happened right next to me; we were on our way back from school camping weekend and a kid peed his pants on the van. He was a really sweet kid and I didn't make fun of him but I'm sure other kids did and it probably affected him a lot.

A few years ago my Nana told me that my mom really had to use the bathroom in 2nd grade, but the nun at her strict Catholic school wouldn't let her go the entire period, and she peed her pants and she was very embarrassed by it. My nana seems to think it shaped my mom in some lifelong negative way but who knows if that's true lol.

In a perfect school system we wouldn't feel the need to control kids like that. If a kid desperately needs to go to the bathroom OR is just so fidgety and fed up with sitting in a boring classroom that they want to go fuck around in the hallways for 10 minutes, then they aren't going to be learning much anyways, so just let them go. I went to a TAG program for a few years in elementary school and we had A LOT of freedom to work as we pleased and I think it was a lot more conducive to learning, for me at least. I know there are some kids who (allegedly) need structure and discipline but allowing kids to be more free and creative with their time has a lot of benefits.

I would get so frustrated somedays in high school that I would just need to take a "bathroom" break and go walk the halls or step outside for a second and would come back to class a lot more refreshed and ready to learn. I think we all forget how incredibly brutal it is being a kid and being forced to sit in classrooms ALL FUCKING DAY. At most you get an 8 minute break between classes, and most of that time is frantically getting to your locker and switching out books, or talking to a teacher, or going to the bathroom, getting water, etc. There's no time to just chill or refresh yourself, and then you're right back to sitting at a desk, listening to an adult drone on. Taking a fake bathroom break just to get some air or get some alone time (of which you have none in schools) is perfectly normal and does not make a kid a bad student, yet it's treated that way. You could literally get detention for taking too long or not actually going to the bathroom, and I think that sucks.