A joking comparison between a school and a provincial prison has been made by plenty of students over the ages.  While this comparison is also made by a student, It’s not made for the sake of humor.  

Provincial prisons may seem as a very over-the-top subject to compare a public school to, but the similarities still exist. For instance,  both typically have a schedule;  students eat lunch at 12:45, are free to wander around for forty five minutes, and must return before 1:10 Pm.  Up until the age of 16, students are forced by law to attend some sort of schooling. They are forced to abide to trivial rules based around tradition, while also respecting teachers who might not entirely respect them back, and of course, they must attend a facility exclusive for education.  However, this may be where the similarities end.

Provincial prisons are different in more than a couple of ways. A provincial prison houses convicts, who have usually committed a crime, and may be receiving punishment.  Freedom is limited extremely, and they are forced to remain inside their facility. They eat, sleep, and live within their facility, and nobody can open a private prison.  Despite this, there are a few things that make obvious connections to a certain public system. For instance, a prison might be used to rehabilitate persons to become adequate citizens, not all that different to how students are taught to behave in schools. Cliques occur in both systems, and bullying of sorts occurs as well, in both places.  Both are afforded through tax dollars, both are commonly created by the provincial governments, and both are often unpleasant to those within.

Could there be a better way to teach, other than building fancy expensive schools with low-paid teachers? Could there be a better way to discipline criminals? Why are children treated like tiny criminals? Are they sent to schools because “We want what’s best for them.” Or do we send them to schools because the public is afraid of them?  The media loves a good demonizing teenagers story, and nobody bats an eye when CNN publishes another teenage criminal story, in complete ignorance of one of the kindest, brightest minorities.   By stating that teenagers and children have developing brains, are we insulting them as a race of people, or is it an excuse to let them off to do childish things, things they haven’t been told to leave behind, or have been told to leave behind explicitly.

More and more, high schools become daycares for growing adults, and less so a place of actual learning. When will the government realize that education is the highest priority? Without properly educated teenagers, we would lose everything. And by manipulating them into thinking that they are unimportant or dangerous, the public admits that they care little for the future.  Does that sound similar? No matter the charge, convicts are seen as dangerous, something to be seriously concerned about, something to fear and escape from. They are discriminated against frequently in the job market, an example being :  Nobody wants to hire a man with a drug possession charge he received six years ago on his record.  They do childish things, as they don’t experience the society of the outside world, stuck inside a swirling vortex of prison life. Gradually, they forget the old rules. All that remains is how to survive in a prison environment, turning soft drug users into hardened criminal  

Does it really seem fair to keep students from experiencing social life out side of school connections and television? Let me rephrase that. Do you want your teenage girl to grow up watching extremely violent entertainment, listening to public opinions through the news and music, without ever actually going out and speaking with people? By forcing students to abide by a five day week schedule, without paying them in anything but cheap education, are we harming them more than helping them? We shouldn’t leave the provincial government to make all the decisions about what’s right for children. It’s the parents, the teachers, the people actually experiencing the school life that should say what’s effective and what’s not. The students can only take so much influence for so long. We blame the parents, the music, the videos, the games, but never do we take a look at the school’s effectiveness.

SOSS Student Franklin Thornton