> She especially hated the infantilization of young adults in US school
> settings (having to request permission to go to the restroom, for
> instance -- utterly ridiculous).
One of the things I hate about being an expat is having to repeatedly explain to people how impossible it is to generalise, beyond the basics, about the "American education system". It's just far too decentralised to make many sweeping statements. This is a perfect example. In my high school, any teacher who tried to make a student ask permission to go to the bathroom would have been laughed out of the building.