School Is Prision?

Recently I read an article entitled “School Is a Prison- And Damaging Our Kids”. The article proceeds to explain modern day school systems and how it outlines an old trend in which it doesn’t allow real learning. The article shares heavy opinions in how school becomes a place of disgust and by the time the students are seniors they are burned out.

The author mentions of a school called Sudbury Valley School in which the students are in charge of their learning. There are rules in place but it is the student’s responsibility or will to learn that will drive them. They pick a subject that interest them and they pursue it no matter what the subject is. There is no Math, English or Science rooms there are just rooms that students can talk, read, play games, or do what they would like. On a daily basis they can go outside and ride bike, play sports or even fish.

The author proceeds to claim that these students are more successful then the millions of other students who go through a traditional amount of school. He brings up information or studies that they have done or from others that supports the claims made in this article.

This article however leaves me with many questions and confused.  All of the “credited” sources they state were not in the article for me to look up. The findings were not shocking to me and dull minded. Of course when you ask a student if they enjoy school more or playing they are going to say playing. If you asked that question to me today I would state the same thing! I believe some schools need to make their classes more of a game (gamification class) but to say that students are better off pursuing a specific category that they want is absolutely absurd. When I was a child if the schools would have asked me what I want to do I would have played sports all day or video games, leaving it that there are months and years of no educational gain.

I went onto then Sudbury School Website to look into this study and they showed a young child playing on a Gameboy Advance. I myself am an avid collector of video games and I can tell you that there is no education games for that system! I believe the traditional way of school is not the future and us as teachers should make it more interactive, personal and individualized, every student however should be educated in the main subject fields.

I read an interview that they conducted on their website and it gave an example of a student who loved to fish. So he fished every day, read books on fishing, watched videos on fishing, you name it and he did but it was all about fishing. That’s great! However does he know how to add or subtract, can he count money, does he know anything about history or are environment. If he doesn’t get a job in fishing though aren’t those years thrown out the window?

I would not be who I am today if it wasn’t for the public school system. I have a very well rounded mind on all fields and even when I got to college I still took classes that were not specific to my field but to keep me educated in all things. I do agree that we need to analyze what work we assign are students and how much it is, we need ways to individualize and personalize lessons to meet their needs and make sure what they are doing is important for them to learn and not just busy work. This article is good because it gets educators to analyze what they do on a daily basis but to go to the extremes as they state is the best way to educate I believe is not the solution.