The Incarceration Model of Education?

For a multitude of reasons, I've been spending a fair bit of time in K-12 schools lately.  School buildings between school seasons are devoid of art projects, banners, flags and the like, and are drearily industrial with their white cinderblock and general lack of windows and natural light. 

This not only brought to mind the many factories that I have been to, but also another rather industrial system that seems somewhat analagous to our current factory model of K-12 education: namely, Prisons.

Schools and Prisons
	Prisons	Schools
Inmate/Student Population	2.26M	49.4M
Yard time per day	2-3 Hours	30-45 minutes
High Incidences of food poisoning from cafeteria	X	X
Proscriptive schedule	X	X
Overcrowding	X	X
Limited freedom of movement	X	X

Perhaps calling it the 'Industrial Model of Education in the Information Age' is a misnomer.  Perhaps we should call it the 'Incarceration Model'.

(please forgive the formatting of the table.  TypePad and tables 'go together like chocolate and Chinese food'.)

 

Comments

[Tracepick]

An interesting comparison, Christian. . . and frighteningly accurate yet we continue to rapidly build both prisons and schools as if that's the only way to solve problems of criminality and learning. Was probably good training back in the day when one went from the pea green walls of the school to the pea green walls of the factory to do repetitive, simple, monotonous, and unthinking tasks obediently and silently taking directions from the boss. . . wait, lost my train of thougth. Was I making a point about schools or prisons? Time to create environments where creativity, divergent thinking, hypotheses testing, and trial and error are encouraged, required, and rewarded. Thanks!

[Brett Neese]

Mr. Renaud, sir?

This is why I like knowing you.

[Saba Khan]

A majority of decry the downfall of American education and learning, for African-Americans the situation is even worse. Urban school systems frequently coach the teachings connected with failure so that you can and with all of our scholars.
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