School, A Synonym For Prison
First of all, let’s ask the basic question, what is education?
Education is defined to be, ‘the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.’ But that is not what education is at all. That sounds more like a definition for indoctrination, not true education. The word, ‘systematic’ is there to highlight that everything is controlled by the system! In my opinion real education is teaching someone how to think and not what to think. It is not based on memory but more on being able to find, disseminate and then use information in areas where you are not familiar.
As Albert Einstein once said,
‘Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.’
That is completely true. We are all geniuses. We are all intelligent in our own unique ways, but as Einstein also said,
'...if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.'
And that is exactly what is happening in today's world. The most obvious example of this insanity is the modern educational system. So let’s take a look at the ‘educational’ system and see if what they teach is really ‘education’ or just an indoctrination of the system’s version of reality.
If you are an older reader you might remember school as something that was quite fun, something enjoyable, a nice to place to go to and meet up with your friends and learn new things, and therefore you might be a bit shocked and disturbed reading such a title. Well let me explain.
School might have been all those good things in the past when you were a child, but a lot has changed since then. School is now an environment that very much resembles a prison with its rules, authority figures and students, which are being stripped of their individuality on the daily, but I will get to that later.
A school does not differ much from a prison:
They are both buildings with huge fences around them to keep the prisoners/students from escaping.
They both have an authority figure which the prisoners/students must listen to and whose orders they must obey.
They both have a mandatory uniform to strip the prisoner/student of their individuality and make them feel like they are like everyone else.
There is a huge emphasis on silence and order along with set times for walking, running, eating and even going toilet.
No prisoner/student is allowed to take part in decision making as all the decisions are already made for them.
They are not allowed to question their environment and their current situations without being punished.
The prisoners/students are both deprived of their basic human right, freedom.
But do you know what the only difference between the two is?
You actually have to commit a crime to be put in prison, but to be put in these schools, all you have to do is simply be born and you are automatically thrown into these brainwashing institutions called schools. And of course, you have no say in whether you want to go there or not. That's insane, absolutely outrageous. Talk about child abuse!
I’ll start off with the authority figures; the principals, the teachers, the board of education and the most destructive ones out of them all, pushy parents. From a very young age, some even as young as 3-4, children are told to look-up to these people, listen to them, respect them and so on. They are told to obey their orders and not question their nature. Simple obedience is what these teachers and principals are looking for; we tell you what to do and you go do it, whether you like it or not. The child becomes traumatised. He is just after coming into this world, curiously asking questions and wanting to learn, and he is already involuntarily thrown into a stuffy classroom with a teacher, an authority figure, and other children his age whom he probably has very little in common with, and is expected to be happy and joyous.
Just ask any child you see if he likes school. Most, if not all, will say no without hesitation. And those who say that they do will explain that they only like to go to school to see their friends and to play games, thus implying that it is not school that they like but simply having fun. And then take a look at the teachers; even they don't enjoy being in these classrooms for six to seven hours straight. Most of them are always miserable and depressed and then end up taking out their anger on these poor kids. And that is just me describing primary education where the children are young and only beginning their journey in this world. Don't even get me started on the insanity that goes on in secondary education.
As the child passes through the school educational system from primary to secondary school, the authority figures demand more and more from the child, causing him to become more stressed out and to eventually develop a depression. Most of this stress comes from high expectations around exams. Confronted with the question, 'Who do you want to be when you grow up?', the inner child inside the now teenager sparks again, only to realise that his dreams are considered 'too unrealistic' and 'unachievable' by the teachers and principles. The child is told to be realistic, and by that continual repetition, his dreams become crushed and he slowly begins to die inside. That is the aim of the schooling system; to kill the inner child, the individual and to make them a cog in the machine; a slave for the system.
Secondly, who came up the idea of mandatory uniforms in these schools? They are of no good to anyone and all they do is strip these children of their individuality. Clothes are a great way for the kids to express themselves, express their inner being and their originality. But that's not what these schools want. They don’t want people thinking that they are individuals, they want them to believe that they are all the same. They want them to be robot-like, dead inside; zombies. Children who not allowed to express themselves through their appearance start losing their individuality.
What do I mean by losing their individuality? I mean that the children are not able to do what they want with their clothes, their hair, their shoes, their flesh. Their creativity is taken away from them. They have taken the only thing they have control over. They have taken away what they see as beautiful and made them subscribe to what “they” think is beautiful. I am all for getting rid off school uniforms and believe that there should be a mass refusal to wear them.
Of course people always come up to me with the question, ‘Isn’t it nice to wake up and not have to pick out new clothes to wear every single day?’ To that I reply with,‘No it is not!’ Waking up and picking out clothes through which you can express yourself, your individuality and your creativity, and then getting dressed in them is a wonderful thing. It is similar to an artist picking paint colors and then using those colors to paint a painting. Your style is your painting, a painting of your individuality. It is a direct reflection of your being. If that is taken from the child, then the very backbone of his creativity and the way in which he expresses himself is killed in him.
Another common argument that I get from people is that it would be unfair for children coming from poorer families which do not have the money to buy clothes that are considered ‘fashionable’ and ‘in’ for their child. This would then inevitably result in bullying and calling of names, which could be easily resolved with everyone having to wear the same clothes. I do not agree with this at all.
Take a look at it this way: If you as a parent would teach your child to be tolerable and nice and to respect everyone then the problem would be easily solved. Demanding the children to wear uniforms is simply solving the symptom of the problem. It is like when a disease infects your body, and your body presents symptoms to try fight it off and to show you that the body is in fact infected and you go on taking your medicine trying to cure the disease. You will never cure the disease that way; all you will do is ease the symptoms. You have to cut the root of the problem to permanently get rid of it.
As Brian G. Jett once said,
‘Problems are like plants; you’ve got to get to the roots in order to prevent them from popping up again.’
This bullying and name-calling is a clear, evident symptom of the problem that is the parents, the media and society teaching the child not to be respectful and to be judgmental. If we looked at the actual root of the problem - the mindset of these children - then we would easily be able to resolve this problem.
Another thing I have to say about that argument, and this will probably shock and perhaps even annoy quite a few of you, is that it is the fault of the child if he gets offended and believes what these low-life, disrespectful kids are saying to him. My advice to these children is: Simply ignore them, let them talk crap, let them laugh at you and mock you. All they are looking for is a reaction from you, so if you completely ignore them and keep on going without paying attention to them or their words, they will be disturbed and confused. They will begin to fear you as you will be unpredictable in their eyes, or they will just simply get bored of picking on you. They strive from the reaction they get from you and without one they will see no point in continuing their bullying. Do not buy into their game!
The next insane thing that goes on in these schools which make them more prison-like than anything is the children being told when they can walk, talk, run, eat, drink or even go to the toilet. If you think about it, that’s completely nuts! Being told when you can go to the toilet? Having to put up your hand to ask if you can leave the class to go urinate? And the most insane part about this is that some teachers actually do not let their students go to the toilet during their class. And they insist that school is a good environment for the child... I do not think so!
Then there is the bell, which indicates the end of one class and either the beginning of the next one or lunch break. Dictated by the bell, the children are told when to stand up, when to walk out of class and when they are allowed to go and eat their lunches. This is a tool for making the students more and more robot-like; like when you press a key on your keyboard and the computer performs a certain action, the child is programmed to stand up, walk out and go to his next class when the bell rings. It’s a way of making the child more obedient and to make him react appropriately to the authority figures and their orders without questioning anything. It’s all planned out to make the child a perfect slave for the system.
Lastly, the children are deprived of their basic freedom in their formative years - from when they are around 6 or 7, all the way up until they are 18, not including colleges and universities which go on for another 3 to 5 years - when they are forced to go to school. And yes, forced is a great word to use in this case as I believe that that is what best describes what these kids are put through every single day. Let’s take a look at a normal school day of a child that is in school.
Woken up by his alarm at around 7 a.m., (because otherwise he would not wake up this early) he gets up out of bed, already dreading the day. He has a huge frown on his face as he knows that he is going to have to spend the next 6 to 7 hours of his day in an environment which he absolutely despises. He goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and looks in his mirror and sighs, muttering to himself how much he hates his life. He then goes downstairs and eats some breakfast, packs his school lunch and heads off to prison, I mean school. Upon arriving in school, he is already surrounded by people whom he has nothing in common with apart from being the same age as them. When the first bell rings, indicating the start of the school day, he goes to his first class. As he enters the classroom he looks at his teacher, who is sitting at his desk with a coffee in his hand to wake him up as he too was woken up far too early by his alarm and is also dreading the day, in the eyes and sits down at his desk.
The class then begins with the teacher calling the roll; checking if every student is present in the class to receive the system’s indoctrination that day. He then spends over 40 minutes listening to his teacher talk about something which he has no interest in and which will not help him in life at all. The bell then rings signifying the end of period one. This is then repeated 7, 8 or even 9 times a day, as that is the number of classes a student has in a day. Then comes lunch, after about 3 hours of the child continuous listening to teachers rambling on about some useless crap. He is finally allowed to eat! What a relief!
As he walks into the school cafeteria, if the school has one, he either goes and gets the food that is being served there, which is disgusting looking and very much resembles prison food, or simply takes out his pre-prepared lunch. When lunch ends, again signalled by the bell, he goes to his last few classes. When the school day is over, he now has a huge smile on his face as he is finally allowed to go home.
Oh but wait, did I mention homework?
So apparently the teachers aren’t able to teach the kids in all those hours, five times a week, for all those years, and they have to give homework? Again, going back to the fact that the children are being deprived of their freedom, this homework forces them to spend their free time - their them-time - when they return home from school, doing more school work, more revision and study. And all that for what? ‘Well, so they can keep up the good work and get good grades.’ Nonsense! The only reason homework is there is to cut down the child’s free time even more and to distract him from the real world and from doing his own research.
This brings us back to the question I asked at the start, what is education? Is it going to school and getting spoon-fed the system’s version of the world and of all that is, or is it doing your own research and finding out that which truly matters to you and that which you know will be helpful in your life?
Luka.
I still remember the sad feelings i usually had on some monday mornings, back then in secondary school. I will agree to some things you said here. Nicely written, just resteemed.
They are the worst feelings. Too many children experience these feelings. I strongly believe that something has to be done about this, and it starts off with properly educating people on how to do their own research and not be slaves. Thank you!