(Excerpt from Stop Beating the Dead Horse)
The components of the model used in the system today to educate students cannot be found in any other part of life. Not in our family lives, our working lives, our community lives, nor our spiritual lives are we ever subjected to all of the following: being segregated by age, our tasks separated and regulated by bells, central authority figures having total control over all our thoughts and actions, meals and extracurricular activities being provided for us, being compelled by law to attend, and being tested regularly to compare us to our peers of the same age. Only in the context of the institution of public school do all these unlike-real-life circumstances exist together. They do not serve to prepare the student for real life; they merely control the students while they are in that institution. They are similar only to the circumstances one finds oneself in while in another institution – prison.
As William Glasser, a noted American psychiatrist, said,
The components of the model used in the system today to educate students cannot be found in any other part of life. Not in our family lives, our working lives, our community lives, nor our spiritual lives are we ever subjected to all of the following: being segregated by age, our tasks separated and regulated by bells, central authority figures having total control over all our thoughts and actions, meals and extracurricular activities being provided for us, being compelled by law to attend, and being tested regularly to compare us to our peers of the same age. Only in the context of the institution of public school do all these unlike-real-life circumstances exist together. They do not serve to prepare the student for real life; they merely control the students while they are in that institution. They are similar only to the circumstances one finds oneself in while in another institution – prison.
As William Glasser, a noted American psychiatrist, said,
“There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.”
George Bernard Shaw wrote,
“[School] is a prison. But it is in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warder and the governor.”
Some may argue that the military and factory work are similar to the institution of public schooling. While that may be true, I would point out two important observations: 1) joining the military and working in a factory are not compulsory, as is school, and 2) if the military or factory work are the closest real-life situations to public schooling (besides prison), is that what we want our education system to be geared for – training only military and factory workers – and does that training really take thirteen years to accomplish?
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