Comments on: School is Prison – What do you think?

By: docmisty

docmisty — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 02:22:33 +0000

Sarah,

I felt a lot of the same myself in public school. I remember writing with my left hand because I was so bored and needed something challenging to do. I would do the homework assignment on the board during the lecture and when the teacher found out, he refused to write it up anymore so that I would ‘pay attention’ when he was teaching. Sheesh! Of course, I had a few great teachers, but it would have been nice if they were the rule instead of the exception.

Thanks for the comment!

Misty

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:28:42 +0000

I remember in elementary school, at about 12 years old (old enough to stay home by myself and old enough to babysit), my mom worked and there was nobody home. Since I was within walking distance, I wanted to go home for lunch (I avoiding playing with the evil children there when I could). The teachers said I couldn’t since my mom wasn’t home, so I used to wait in the classroom until we were let outside for lunch hour. Then I would watch for the teacher on duty outside, and when they weren’t looking, I make a run for it. It definitely felt like jail since I was essentially escaping.

I remember the day I finished high school. That was the freest feeling day of my life!

By: CT

CT — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:35:30 +0000

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

By: docmisty

docmisty — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:41:47 +0000

Misty

By: Nan

Nan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:41:17 +0000

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?