Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
A bit less than 20 years ago, when I was teaching at the University of Tulsa, I received a call out of the blue. “Would you have a moment to converse with Speaker Albert?” I was asked. “He needs your help.”
The Albert in question was Carl Albert, former Majority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives (1961-71) and former Speaker of the House (1971-77) – a man 5’4” in height, born in Bugtussle, Oklahoma, who was known throughout the state as the Little Giant from Little Dixie.
Albert and I had never met, but we had this in common: We were both Oklahoma Rhodes Scholars. The number of members in that select club was small, and it was a fairly tight brotherhood. He had a right to call on my services, and we both knew it.
His problem, as he explained it, was straightforward. At Oxford, Albert had studied at St. Peter’s College, and he was arguably its most prominent alumnus. The Master of St. Peter’s was about to descend upon him with his Director of Development in tow, and Albert wished to put on a luncheon for the man at what was billed as the oldest Italian restaurant in Oklahoma – Pete’s Place in Krebs, outside of Macalester, founded in 1925. To this luncheon, he proposed to invite all of his local friends and associates so that they could hear the Master speak. It was his hope, and that of the Master of St. Peter’s, that someone could be induced to make a major gift to the college in Albert’s honor.
The Master of St. Peter’s College at that time was a man named John P. Barron. He was by trade an ancient historian, and he had done distinguished work on archaic Samos. Albert knew nothing regarding the man’s field, and he was slightly senile and had the sense to know his limits. So he asked me to perform what was properly his responsibility – to introduce his guest.
This I readily agreed to do. And, on the appointed day, I drove down to Krebs and met all of the local notables from southeastern Oklahoma – the owner of the Chevrolet dealership in Macalester, the president of the local state university, the mayor of Macalester, and the like. The best known among these was the longest-serving state senator in American history, a lawyer of legendary ability who had been tried by the feds for income tax evasion three times and acquitted on each occasion. He was said to control the drug trade at the state prison in Macalester. But no one was ever able to prove a thing.
When the meal was nearly done, Albert introduced me, and I spoke briefly about Barron, talking about his career and praising his scholarship (which I still very much admire). Then, my introduction took a turn unanticipated by my host. I am afraid that there was mischief in me, even then.
So I digressed to discuss Barron’s abandonment of teaching and scholarship for – drum roll, please! – administration. Faculty members, I explained, regarded administrators with a jaundiced eye. Somehow or other they were always making trouble for us. We thought them, I said, an evil – but an exceedingly necessary evil. They saw to it that we were paid, and to that end they became accomplished in relieving other people of their excess cash.
Be careful, ladies and gentlemen, I exclaimed, this man has not come here with innocent intent. When you leave, check your wallets, look into your pocketbooks, examine with care the contents of your purses. For mark my words. This man wants the contents. Something wicked comes this way.
Albert loved it. So did the other patrons – and the Director of Development for St. Peter’s College, who was seated at the head table next to me, was nearly on the floor he was laughing so hard. “I have never seen that done,” he told me.
Barron was quick on the uptake, and he came right to the point. He was, indeed, hoping to raise money because he had a worthy project. St. Peter’s College is located in Oxford right next to the Oxford Jail – parts of which date to the 12th century. The jail was being closed, and it was up for sale. The cells, he explained, would make good student rooms. It was the chance of a lifetime for St. Peter’s. It would allow the college to expand, but renovation was expensive.
While listening to the talk and chatting with the Director of Development, I could not help but think of Michel Foucault’s influential book Discipline and Punish – which, in elaborate ways, argues from a Marxist-existentialist perspective that schooling and incarceration are akin (Foucault died a Hayekian). Among other things, its author insists, both institutions are rooted in surveillance by the public authorities, and both are designed to enforce a species of discipline on the population. I suggested that Dr. Barron could make his talk more academic by bringing in Foucault, but I acknowledged that this might not make his pitch more effective.
But are schools really akin to prisons? Or is Foucault talking through his hat? I can see the arguments on both sides. I must confess, however, that I never felt that I was incarcerated while in school. I found it a liberation – a real source for stimulation. What about you?
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Jun '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
If you have an attention deficit problem, it can be like prison. Beyond about 15 minutes, just concentrating on what the typical lecturer is saying is almost torture. I would've loved to have all lectures on a video that I could stop, and then come back to when my mind quiets down.
Jul '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
The comparison seems specious at best. For starters, prisoners have enforceable rights and a certain guaranteed level of sustenance and health care. And seem to rest and exercise far more regularly.
Aug '12
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
One is voluntary and one is not.
Though education has become fraudulent in many respects in recent years it has increased in it's similarity to prison: enormous debts that can be difficult to pay off with ill-advised and largely useless degrees.
(Note: I'm not saying all degrees are worthless but many of them are; many see college as an institution which prepares them to perform some form of work which is largely false).
Dec '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Are we talking about K-12, higher education or both?
Apr '12
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Certainly if you're in a low end, inner city school. Check out John Stossel's documentary, I believe it's called, "Stupid in America." Horrible conditions, where any scholastic benefits would be impossible.
Will read the rest when I have time!
Edited on August 7, 2012 at 8:46pmMay '12
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
It can seem like prison, even to the most enthusiastic of students, just as the most loving parents can sometimes seem like tyrants to their children. Education is necessary, and cannot always be made fun by even the best of teachers.
Ignorance is a Prison, and a poor education can make correcting it on your own later in life (in Remedial Reading & Math courses) feel like Hard Labor.
Then again, I'm not married, so I wouldn't know, but I am given to understanding that Marriage is not for the faint of heart or people too easily given to Falling in Love.
Eric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach is all about that.
Edited on August 7, 2012 at 8:48pmSep '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
I attended a small, liberal arts college. The same one my father attended. He told me early on to be careful "they'll give you enough rope to hang yourself" I heard that phrase many times. Apparently, in prison, this is not allowed. Maybe we should consider it?
May '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
College (especially including Oxford) certainly did not seem like prison. Grade school, on the other hand, might as well have had iron bars and guard towers...
Jul '12
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
At the university level, I'd say no. The best universities give students the room to succeed or fail. Certainly a structure is set in place in which students conform, but only in the broadest sense.
But perhaps metaphorically, you're right. If you fail at the university, they take your money, send you on your way, and you spend years digging your way out of a debt hole. If you fail at jail, we "have a failure to communicate" and you end up spending thirty days in the hole. Either way, you're in a hole.
Mar '11
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
This notion, if intended literally, is as ridiculous as it is dangerous. We are sure that innocent students in a house of learning under legal requirement are not the same as criminals who have broken the law. That constraints exist in both places is a superficial and careless observation.
If taken allegorically, however, I will only answer here that this could be the case, but only if the conclusions of the “school” displace the primacy of the questions.
With regard to Foucault, I cannot express any further opinion publicly at this time out of respect for the constraints of such a forum and the CoC.
May '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Public school in America can most certainly be a prison as the metal detectors at the front doors of so many middle and high schools can attest. The slightest non-conformity can result in a lock-down.
Because the chase for Federal dollars - and not education - has become the primary focus of administrators, roll call is taken in every single class, not just homerooms in the morning.
Then there are various "zero tolerance" rules which treats everyone as a world class offender. (Which I call "zero thinking" rules.) Aspirin and Tylenol are treated on the same contraband level as meth amphetamines.
Yeah, there are a lot of comparisons. (And my 8-year-old still laughingly refers to his time in the exercise yard as "recess!")
Aug '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
I attended a school that was once referred to as "...some sort of PENAL institution?"
The school is the USAF academy and the line comes from the excerable movie Iron Eagle.
It was the only thing that movie got right.
Oct '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Indeed - you have to do something voluntarily to go to prison. To be sentenced to school you just have to be born.
Jan '11
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
In the same vein as the professor, a hypothetical:
Suppose a doctor informed you that you had a rare disease; such that every time you heard another person refer to a black person, you would sneeze. Therefore, the doctor prescribed a drug that would control your brain impulses. Would you take the drug? But wait. Now suppose the disease was that every time you heard a reference to a black person, you would become angry. Would you take it then? In other words, would you agree to pharmacologically control your brain?
How about if the control was achieved psychologically? Hypnosis, perhaps?
Now, would you agree to do it through intellectual discipline?
Just out of curiosity, what’s the difference between that and an education?
Oct '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
I considered K-12 as imprisonment of the most foul kind. When you can figure out almost all of it by reading the textbook and consulting the library on your own, endless hours sitting in classes listening to the drone of painfully obvious things you already know is akin to solitary confinement. Well, actually worse—in the hole you don't have the poisonous peer group dynamics and bullying.
I found university (engineering school) a tremendous improvement, but largely because there was an unwritten rule that if you scored an A on both the midterm and final exams, you got an A for the course regardless of attendance, homework, or other tedious matters. (This was 1967–1971, before grade inflation made getting an A so easy.) I took advantage of this and had a great deal of time to spend in the library, machine shop, computer centre, and laboratories of open-minded professors and learned far more than I would have in the classroom. Further, I acquired the skills for self-directed learning.
I continue to believe that the current education system will collapse and be replaced with on-line learning and coaching, and credentialing by independent agencies.
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
I had them all in mind.
Aug '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
For me, K-12 was mostly a prison, except for grade 9 gym class which was more like being a Christian on the floor of the Roman Coliseum.
Apr '11
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
I didn't feel imprisoned until High School. At that time, I suffered from social anxiety, and I felt that being trapped in a school with a lot of people who didn't want to be there was unreasonable. I did want to be there, but the people who didn't made it difficult for those of us who did.
I felt such a relief when I got to go to college, finally I would be surrounded by people who wanted to be there as much as I.
Feb '11
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Lewis Lawes, long-times warden of Sing Sing prison, wrote an interesting book entitled Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing...the number referring to the adequate length of the sentences of those in Sing Sing at a particular point in time.
Twenty-five hundred men saddled with an aggregate of twenty thousand years! Within such cycles worlds are born, die, and are reborn. That span has witnessed the evolution of the intelligence of mortal man. And we know that twenty thousand years have seen nations run their courses, perish, and give way to their successors. Twenty thousand years in my keeping. What will they evolve?
This thought helped to inspire my recent post: Six Hundred Million Years in K-12
Aug '10
Re: Are Schools Akin to Prisons?
Elementary school at its most cruel: The moment they teach you how to tell time. From that point forward, you know just how long you're stuck in that classroom.
Tick...
Tick...
Tick...
Tick...
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