September 11, 2009
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I just read an interesting article here by Peter Gray, a professor of psychology, that says over and over, “School is Prison.” He says that a main reason kids don’t like school is that they’ve lost their freedom and their time and activities are completely controlled throughout the public school day.
Since my husband pretty much loved school (the geek) 
as a kid, and I was banging my head (figuratively) against the classroom walls the whole way through, I’m interested to hear what you think? Did you have that kind of experience in public schools as a kid?
Here are a few fun prison public school moments I remember:
- Writing in my journal with my left hand during a class in a desperate bid for something challenging to do.
- One teacher erased the current homework assignment off the board, because I was doing that night’s homework during his lecture instead of ‘paying attention’ like I was supposed to. (That just meant I did his homework in the following period so I didn’t have to ‘waste’ any of my free time after school)
- I wrote an essay detailing what I knew the teacher thought the interpretation of red in “The Scarlet Letter” meant, even though I completely disagreed. (I had quickly figured out that getting an ‘A’ meant telling a teacher what he/she wanted to hear.)
- Mr. Sergeant, a history teacher, handed everyone a folder on a significant figure in the WWII era and after a week of research, we all had a debate with each other representing our WWII V.I.P.
To be fair, here is a great experience:
Ahh . . . why weren’t all my classes like Mr. Sargeant’s history class?
So, in remembrance of public school, I have an essay question for you: (please answer in the comment section)
- How are public schools like prisons? How are they not? Please explain.
Posted under Homeschool Life
How are public schools like/unlike prison?
I know that for me public school was an escape from the abusive prison that was my home. That said, its biggest perk was only that I wasn’t at home. I spent most of my time figuring out how to get out of doing what I was told to do. Grades were not my priority, not getting beaten was.
My personal favorite was: at the beginning of high school I signed all paperwork as my parents, so for the next 4 years everything to be signed by a “parent” was signed by me giving me freedom and control over what I was doing.
Please notice that no where in my commentary do you hear me say anything about learning. Even a prison is preferable to being abused, but no real education happened except in my journalism (I was on the newspaper as a typesetter and business editor) and art classes. These teachers were truly excellent, thought outside the box and gave us real skills we could use for the rest of our lives.
I do think that schools are like prisons, you have to be there, you are not given real choice, teachers have to pander to the lowest common denominator and your learning needs are not even part of the equation – unless you do well reading information from a book.
I managed to learn all of the bad lessons and none of the educational ones. Is that what we send our kids to “school” for?
I’m sorry to hear how difficult your school-aged home was. I had considered safety a ‘con’ against public school with bullying, drug use, weapons, etc. – but you gave me a different viewpoint. For many, school can be an escape from dangerous home life. Thanks for sharing.
Misty
I’m sorry to hear how difficult your school-aged home was. I had considered safety a ‘con’ against public school with bullying, drug use, weapons, etc. – but you gave me a different viewpoint. For many, school can be an escape from dangerous home life. Thanks for sharing.
Misty