Is it normal that school actually feels like a prison?

You barely answer the last question on the worksheet in the room surrounded by cold steel bars and you hear the bell ring.

"Alright inmates, time for lunch!"

You make a dash for the run-down lunch room with cameras watching even though the halls are filled with other inmates who are dressed in South Pole and Adidas. People are pushing and shoving you left and right but you calm yourself because giving in to DARKNESS and revealing your heartless form is what got you your sentence. In the lunch line, you ask the girl in front of you with the blood stains on her shirt, "What are you in for?" She replies, "Eh, I didn't study for my end of grade test so now they are renewing last year's sentence." Oh the horror!

*cough* Oh yeah, perfectly normal. I only felt this way in lower grades though because it seems as you get older, you get way more options of freedom and then in college, you handle things yourself and can just wander around and do what you want if you don't have a class and generally have much more freedom. You don't have classes all day or even everyday and they don't even care if you don't show up to class as long as you don't reach the max number of absences, then you're screwed. Thankfully I didn't go to a middle or high school that had uniforms but they surely didn't restrict hair styles except for making your hair all purple or something. Because you know, everyone wants to be Mistress 9.

Oh it's just another kid that wants to complain about school

Wait to you get trapped in the mindless drudgery of a job.

I will trade the OP positions. I will go to school and you work a stupid job and pay bills, insurance, property taxes etc.. you think school is a bitch then wait till you hit the real world.

Who still needs school anyway?
There are ipads and the khan academy and I could finally learn more things at my own pace without being bullied by dumb jocks in a year than during 12 years of incarcera-erh school.

<<"I know many of you are thinking."Oh,It's just another kid that wants to complain about school.">>

Most certainly not! And I'm an adult. You make a very valid point. In time you'll realize school is not about teaching the kids specific knowledge but about indoctrinating them into the rules of the system. Graduating school isn't really about accrediting knowledge that would be useful in the workplace but more about accrediting the fact that you have succeeded in waking up every morning to go there no matter the weather, in obeying the orders you were given, in adapting to all the rules, in meeting deadlines, in somehow finding your place among the other kids, etc.

It's unfortunate that it's often only after leaving school we realise how fortunate we were to have been educated for most of our childhood. It's easy to take it for granted.

There are plenty of countries in which education is still a privilege, where children are grateful to go to school, where being educated can literally mean the difference between thriving and starving.

That's not to say we lucky people have perfected the art of institutionalised education. I can think of many things I would have perhaps benefited from learning in school, and things I have not benefited from learning. There should always be a push for the best teaching, best facilities and an understanding of individual needs rather than a factory or farm approach. But we have to keep things in perspective.

If you have a problem with the way the school is, create a petition, arrange a meeting with your teachers or the head of the school, create a student paper to express things from a pupil perspective - highlight what you think could be improved, communicate these ideas to parents of children at the school. If you're so passionately upset by the current situation in your school or country, then why not try to stand up and do something about it?

I feel sorry for everybody who has to suffer because of the Conneticut School shooting. Now schools all over the U.S. are losing more freedom and enforcing more rules.

Prison and high school have a very similar dynamic.

I understand that. I guess it also doesn't help that I have no friends, I mostly sit by myself and read (all my attempts to develop friendship fail).

I think the American education system needs improvement. At least where I live, there are no classes that teach us any skills that would be useful in the real world. A class that taught us how computers work(and how to protect yourself from cyber attacks, which I believe will be increasingly important as everything is starting to be built with a computer in it), how to do your taxes, pay your bills, manage money, the basic workings of your car and even some small necessary life skills like sewing buttons would be helpful.

At least I don't feel like propaganda is being fed to us that much in history, as the teachers I've had encouraged us to question the material and share information that we've found from other sources such as the internet (as long as it's a good source).

Honestly, one of the main purposes of school is not to educate us and teach us how to think, but to simply keep us from having enough time and freedom to vandalize the city.

Oh and remember kid's,

we are all "free"

try going to a high school that forces you through a metal detector patrolled by the local police precinct.

Open prisons are probably better than school. You get to watch TV and play pool all day, and only need to learn anything if you actually want to.

Ah, our good old public indoctrination system at work... They'll just throw more money at the problem to make you feel at ease... That always works right? Oh, and remember to study for your standardized tests and your TeenScreen exam!

BARF...HACK....GAG... Dx

Oh man, I only recently left school and I can tell you that I'd give anything to go back. As much as it did seem like a prison then, now that I think about it it was pretty fun to just chill with your friends all day. Once you leave, you've got to get a job and be independent. You have to fight for time to see your friends but by the weekend you're too tired to go anywhere or do anything but catch up in sleep. Oh take me back to school!

i have a old hag teacher thats likes to boss peps at school and blame thing on them and she a bitch i tell you a BITCH

I loved School, but High School really was a prison! Trust me, you would love College.

Certain classes yes. In our French class the windows are actually caged (so that they can't be smashed by people walking through our school) but it does naturally feel like a prison. lol

One thing I'd like to add to my post is that I do enjoy getting an education.I actually have good grades in my classes.
It's not going to school I have a problem with.And I do understand the logic behind having rules.
But,It goes way to far.It's obvious to the point where all it is is a matter of control in them and the wish to create compliance and submission.
They stomp you out of your own free will.
What's even worse is the "rights" they claim everyone to have (Like what they're trying to teach in civics classes)And apparently none of that is valid in a school setting.It's the irony of the whole thing that I'm really frustrated with.

Oh dear, another melodramatic child that's whining about school. I always laughed at people like this, that bitched about not being "free" and stuff. School is there to turn children into citizens, to provide an education, to instil discipline and regiment. Not to just let you do whatever the fuck you want to do.

Honestly, school is the best years of your life, you may not know it now, but one day you will look on them and think to yourself "Why did I ever whine, when life was so easy?"

When you're at school you have literally zero responsibility. Just go to school, do homework, pass the exams, that's it. Try being an adult.

Man, I remember that feeling. But savor your freedom while you have it, kid. Soon you'll have to pay for all your own crap, and work is an even worse prison.

Think of it this way, at this age, you have nothting to worry about at school. Since you are still in school, I am assuming that you still live at home with your parents. I'm also going to make the assumption that you have no bills to worry about, no taxes, no really big responsibilities that are vital to your life. All you hae to worry about is school. When you get out, you will have to get a job. Not a little part time job that you can quit when you feel like, but a real job that will decide whether you eat or not. This may not be a job that you like and it's likely that they won't let you wear your hair the way you want or wear the clothes that you like (real world has dress codes too). Mommy and daddy won't be able to take care of everything you do anymore. Teachers, oh, ha ha. Try having getting fined by the REAL authority. Mommy and daddy can't help you out with that one, either. You will be held responible for your own actions.

Now, you may be gradtuating from high school this year, what are you going to do with yourself? Time is going to go by fast and it will seem much faster than it did when you were in high school. Life will suddenly start and you have to start moving or you may be stuck with a job that you don't exactly like.

I'm not saying school was fun, and actually, I'm glad that I'm graduated and I wouldn't go back, but you if you are under the age of 18, you are still a kid and, therefore, not considered a legal adult. School may suck, but they are only trying ot prepare you for the real world.

Yeah right i heard the whole real world is harder crap for years, i love my job it better then school. I get payed to work evenings(that means i get to sleep till noon). Even with the irs up your ass its better than the teachers up your ass. The reason real world sucks is because school sucks. If your not cool in school you likely will be the boss of all those dicks that made fun of you and you want to punish the world. SHOW THEM LOSERS AND NERDS they deserve it -.-

It feels like a prison because they run it like one... Well home much like one depends on the school, but some inner city schools can come frighteningly close. And the bottom line is many people are not there voluntarily which makes it feel like a prison no matter what.

If you're still in school and thinking this already I admire you.

You have been blessed with the ability to think for yourself, congratulations.

Glad to know that you see it as well. Well, maybe something should be done about this situation...lol

I think you are dramatizing somewhat - though clearly you are getting nothing out of it.

So why not go work? Or travel?

Unless you are so young that you have to be there, you have some responsibility for what you make of your time there and do otherwise.

If you're in America you can still count yourself lucky, probably. I went to a school that was originally constructed as a prison then converted to a school. We were made to wear a light blue-grey uniform and there was still a cell they would lock unruly kids in. There was only one entrance open in the morning and we had to march through it. Which was generally a chaotic melee. You needed papers to leave the class and go to the toilet. If you missed even a single class automatic phones would call your parents and police officers regularly walked the balconies. I would be in at least one low intensity fight each day.

Still could have been worse. I could of been born in Somalia or southern Sudan during the war. Helps to keep perspective.

It's too damn stressing!