Negative reinforcement, emphasis on silence and order, abridged freedoms, no input in decision-making, dress code/uniforms, and more, are all similarities that you can see between school and prison. Overall, both industries suppress people into conformity.
In school, you must arrive at the same time and leave at the same time, day after day. You are given a schedule to follow and rules not to break. You are expected to follow the rules built into the school and expected not challenge the infrastructure of the system. Teachers are all-powerful. They control what your mind is being fed, and other school officials decide what your body is being fed as well. We have no control over how they go about our everyday lives because such a huge part of it (eight hours of school) is being controlled by others.
We don’t have a say in what we are learning. Our knowledge is what empowers us, and because there is such a strong disconnect in what is being taught, we no longer feel that knowledge and education are important in our lives. The biggest reason for learning and putting effort into our work is the why factor, why is what we are learning important to us? So many curricula do not answer the most important question, therefore we don’t care about what they are learning because there is a good reason to be learning it. Instead of teaching lifelong skills, like handling personal expenses, growing your own food, health, and wellness, how to change the oil in a car, etc., we are being taught information that will never matter in the real world.
In my opinion, school is like a prison, but we are allowed to leave. If we do decide to leave early, we get a detention, which would be like getting more added to your sentence. I definitely think, as high schoolers, we should be able to have more say in what goes on in our lives. Do we need all 3 years of math that we will never use? In English we go through the same thing year after year, but with different projects.
Questions
Do you think we should have more say about what goes into our lives?
Is school like Prison?
If they taught life skills, would you actually listen?
How do you think we could change this?
How do you think school prepares us for the real world?
Sources
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/11/11/when-school-feels-like-jail
https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/whats-the-difference-between-school-and-jail
Replies
I believe that the school should be called kind of a prison. We can do more things that people can't do in prison but in school you are a little limited what we do. I don't think that us students could do anything it is just how the students teach and we won't be able to change it.
Exactly, we are just having to go through life, there isn't anything anyone can do to change it unfortunately
I think sometimes school can feel like a prison. Like how sometimes they teach us things that we won't use after we're done with school again. I think school prepares us for the real world by showing us that we don't always get to do what we want, but I wish they would also teach us life skills.
I agree, they teach us real world stuff to an extent but I would like to see more
I think that at times, the school definitely feels like a prison. For starters, maybe we can get some more windows. When I show up in the morning for school, it's dark and gloomy. I think that windows would help the situation by a lot so it doesn't look like a prison.
I agree, it is so dark in school. They say if need be in case of an emergency, to climb out windows, but there isn't any to climb out of. We are so gloomy and I cheerful at school. We go down the stairway and there is the drug lady staring at us
I agree that the students should get a chance to decide and not just have required classes because I have all my classes and I get no break through the day and most of the classes I am taking I do not want to and I feel I shouldn't have to and it is also like prison because once you get out of school you have homework, which is kind of like how after prison people can't just go out and do everything.
I get mad at the homework part. Im already there for 7 hours a day why do I need more work? We are told we need to leave work at work and not work at home, but that is exactly what we have to do. We can't do what is being preached to us. Yet we are having to continue on, and no one will ever listen to us
i think we should have more of a say becasue we are getting taught stuff but not the basics. Usually stuff that we might not even need. If they taught life skills and I would absolutely listen because why wouldn't I wanna know that stuff. We come here to learn and they want us to enjoy school but how are we suppsoed to when if we even laugh we will get yelled at. Teachers expect us to shut up and listen. If we have an opinion and we speak out on it it's seen as disrespectful.
Exactly, our rights are taken away, they say if we have a problem go to the school board but they don't listen either. No one listens to us, but we have to listen to them. They don't treat us fairly and definetly don't treat us equally
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