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School or Prison

schoolprison.com

241–250 of 497 posts

Re: School or Prison

#241
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI and competition between schools can fix all that. But naked capitalism tells women to "lean in and earn $1 for every 70 cents" instead of telling men to "lean out and earn 70c for every $1" ...and spend more time with your children, family, contributing to open source software, learning science, an instrument, hobbies, sports and exercise and doing other things not valued by the market. UBI is far superior to bot…

We teach children how to do paperwork starting at age 5. How necessary is that?

I wish I had been taught paperwork or actual practical life skills (filing taxes for example) as opposed to some complex mathematical operations that I don't even remember anymore.

Re: School or Prison

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments here suggest you're in the majority with your experience, though I wonder if there might be a little participation bias with regard to strong memories of such bad policies. As a contrast, at my school the policy was far more reasonable: you still needed permission to leave, but if you didn't abuse the privilege—using it every day, or disappearing for half the lesson—the teacher wouldn't give you any grief.

Things seem to have changes for the better since my time: How old are you? < 30? I have two kids in grammar school right now & they no longer face this same type of issue, but I also don't know if that's a local change or a more general re-think on students' biological needs.

30 on the dot, but my school was pretty liberal/progressive/what-have-you, so that may have helped. Hopefully considering those needs is more commonplace now, and folks won't have horror stories in the future.

Re: School or Prison

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of "forced labor", just about any large building is going to have people & operations that occur on fixed schedules and have some degree of security.

And now you understand Foucault.

Maybe not: If he considered those sorts of structures (absent the forced labor) to be inherently bad in some way then I do not understand that point of view.

Re: School or Prison

#244

In one of the largest high schools in Texas, we weren't allowed to leave campus, we couldn't even take our lunch out of the double doors and eat our sandwich outside. It's something I absolutely despise about our contemporary culture. I live in Latin America now and envy the kids for getting 45 minutes free at lunch time to hang out outside, socialize, buy from the street vendors that will gather at that time, maybe…

Our principal refused to let students leave campus, as a student had gotten in a car wreck over lunch and died at a previous school. So, there's some logic there. They are nominally responsible for you during school hours.

> Our principal refused to let students leave campus, as a student had gotten in a car wreck over lunch and died at a previous school. So, there's some logic there

By that logic, we should never let students leave at all, because certainly some have been killed in car wrecks on the way home.

There is NO logic in preventing people doing that which they will do later anyway.

Re: School or Prison

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools are one of the most universal community hubs that the largest majority of a community will interact with regularly. No one wants a cookie cutter community center.

> No one wants a cookie cutter community center. The specific point of the parent comment is that they do want a cookie cutter school. Saying "no one wants that" isn't really a substantial counter argument. I suppose the problem with them all being so similar would be if you spent every day visiting a different one, you would tire of them all being them same. But no one does that - you spend many years in a single on…

The problem with them all being similar is that would mean they don't reflect their inhabitants. The same as no two rivers flow the same, no two schools work the same. They nominally accomplish the same task in similar ways but will have a fingerprint in how its done. There's a degree of practicality that comes with a school that can be met with common resources, but it's still apparent communities don't want modular schools (regardless of individual opinions).

There's a long list of reasons schools aren't just a cleared field with a bunch of mobile-unit classrooms thrown out there despite that being the most cost-effective way to house classes.

Re: School or Prison

#246

A more meaningful comparison would be bathroom privileges. In prison you can pretty much poop or get a drink of water whenever you want. In school you need special permission, and hope the teacher wasn't in a bad mood or that 3 other kids hadn't needed to pee in the last half hour, meeting some mental quota the teacher has for the appropriate # of people that should have to use the toilet during a given period of tim…

Yeah I got kicked out of class once in high school (affecting my attendance) because I couldn't hold it until the end of the class, the teacher said no, and my choice was between disobeying or whipping my dick out and peeing on the floor. I of course chose disobeying, but I'm pretty sure that the teacher would be far less strict in the future if I went the other route.

"I didn't get into college because I had to use the bathroom during class a lot" - no one, ever

Just turn on your voice recorder and go.

Re: School or Prison

#247
I was pretty ready to upvote this, but then I scored 9/10, (the one I got wrong had Chinese/Mandarin writing on - another I got right kind of looked like a school but said HMP, I'm British, I know that's Her Majesty's Prison, so 'swings and roundabouts').

Re: School or Prison

#248
This test biased toward the western building culture of school and prison. As a Japanese, I'm clueless on most buildings save for one image that was of Japanese high school and it literally says high school in Japanese.

Re: School or Prison

#249

A more meaningful comparison would be bathroom privileges. In prison you can pretty much poop or get a drink of water whenever you want. In school you need special permission, and hope the teacher wasn't in a bad mood or that 3 other kids hadn't needed to pee in the last half hour, meeting some mental quota the teacher has for the appropriate # of people that should have to use the toilet during a given period of tim…

When I was eight years old I had a teacher who told us that if we needed to use the bathroom, rather than ask "can I use the bathroom?" we should instead say "I'm going to the bathroom". She said she would never stop us from going, but that we should at least let her know why we're leaving the room. I never got to experience that again at school after I left the second grade.

I like her. Last time I taught HS I told my students that I would never deny them the right to go to the bathroom, but that if they went more than three times in a week (or something) I would send a note to the nurse so she could discuss a possible health issue with them and their parents.

Re: School or Prison

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following is specific to the USA: 1. School is not mandatory; education is mandatory. Ask any home schooler. A rare few private schools offer quite different experiences than the typical public school (e.g., the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools). This applies also to "closed confinement" and "control". Of course, opting out requires enlightened parenting and lots of resources. 2. You are constantly told w…

> School is not mandatory; education is mandatory. Ask any home schooler. Home schooling is not a suitable alternative IMO. Social contact with your peers is important too; having to forfeit that just to not be in a prison-like system seems like a bad deal. > Choose some good coding/math/philosophy puzzles during the evening and work on them instead of paying attention in class So in addition to wasting 8 hours per d…

The idea that homeschooling is devoid of social contact is a bit naive I think. Of course different parents have different styles - it is entirely possible to close off your child from social contact. But most homeschoolers I know have their kids doing all kinds of things throughout the day. Sports, group lessons in topics where the parent's knowledge is lacking, and overall more free time to visit friends' houses and do things that are actually interesting. The real trade off of homeschooling is with respect to the effort required by the parents.
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