Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Schools vs. Prisons.

An observation from the perspective of a wall flower.

Here I am in a worn down stone walled room, I look to my left to see a girl with red hair with chunky blonde highlights to disguise the fact that she was born as what is known as a “ginger”. Her skinny face is made into a look that is a recognizable symbol for a gang that is spoken of indirectly “the preps”. The symbol is called the “the stink eye”, the most famous unspoken communication of higher authority, social and finical class. This girl is not alone, she is always accompanied by girls who dress,talk, and act nearly identical. This observation was not made in a prison but in a third period grade eleven law class.
It's quite a easy mistake to get the two mixed up really, you have no choice about being put in. Once you're in you have to serve your sentence before being let out and your choices are very limited.
Call me pessimistic but jail serves you three square meals a day, high school you buy over priced reheated food. Jail lets you have contact with friends and family, high school you get your phone taken away for even having it out. Jail give you a option of free post grad education, high school prepares you for student loans and thousands of dollars in tuition.
At least in prison you have something in common with your peers, in high school they throw you all together like a salad bowl and expect you to all get along. They act surprised when we rebel, seriously?
To get technical with it...
Hormonal, self absorbed, horny teenagers + more hormonal,self absorbed, horny teenagers =
DISASTER
In prison they split you based on sex, in high school they put you all together and force you into heath class to “avoid” pregnancy's. The heath class videos are never up to date and at least twenty years old. They reinforce the techniques of abstinence or you will catch STD's and your junk will fall off, only after having a baby that you'll have to drop out of school to take care of.
Don't get me wrong, jail isn't totally different. In both there are guards except in high school we call them teachers. Both have rules, strict schedules and cameras watching our nearly every move. One wrong comment, movement or action and its punishment time for you.
Our punishment strategies in high school mainly consist of detention,suspension and expulsion.
Detention: If the student hates school enough to misbehave shove them in a room of solitude. You're only giving them time to brew up another idea to get themselves into trouble again.

Suspension: I mean if the pupil is aware that school is BS, take him out of it. Staying at home and watching TV and having no homework. That will show them!
Expulsion: Early release, enough said.
No matter how you word it or who you ask, it's hard to deny that most people trudge through high school. You can't avoid it and you aren't going to like it. Just let it be known, if high school is the best years of your life, the rest of your life is going to suck. Just serve your sentence and enjoy the rest of your life, a “free” being.