Examining the Connections Between Schools and Prisons
The goal for this post is to practice the fourth tool of the Analytical Methods for making the implicit explicit: Recognizing Difference within Similarity. (pg 99).
Here is the School-to-Prison pipeline game: http://www.aclu.org/school-prison-pipeline-game
I re-present it here so you have another opportunity to think about it. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a game to get us to think about not only how schools and prisons are alike and children are prepared for prison by schools, but also the ways those similarities are damaging our schools and children (here is their information in article form: http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline). Can you see the similarities they are pointing out between prisons and schools? Can you make note of any important or illuminating distinctions? Try the Difference within Similarity activity to find examples of ways the difference between prison and schools (in spite of other more obvious similarities) seems to be working to make meaning.
Step 1: Decide what difference (in spite of the many similarities) you want to serve as a basis of analysis. (For example: Even though prisons and schools have their similarities, guilt defines prisons and innocence defines schools.)
Step 2: Briefly explain the relatively obvious difference by asking “So what?” Why is this difference significant? (For example: Guilt allows us to punish people for their wrongdoing. We aren’t hurting them for no reason when they are guilty. It gives us the right to take away freedoms and make people pay for their crimes against civilized society. It is not as acceptable to punish innocents. Punished for what?)
Step 3: Then focus your attention on the less obvious but revealing difference within the similarity. (For example: if children are being treated “like criminals” in schools, are we treating them like they are guilty? What could they be guilty of? No tolerance policies seem to presume guilt of children in a way that might not respect the difference between guilty and innocent parties. Are children treated like they are guilty though they are not? Zero tolerance policies seem to assume children are guilty so that it can punish them pre-emptively.)
Try this method for making the implicit arguments explicit and see what you come up with.
Good luck!
I think people should know the difference between mistake and crime. Prison and school are alike in many aspect. However, the very essential difference is that, in prison, people commit crimes and in school students make mistakes. Crime, by definition, is the breach of the rules or laws which are determined by entire society. Mistakes, however, is daily-based issue defined by small groups of people's conception instead of the rules or laws of a country; mistake is much less severe than crime.
ReplyDeleteMost citizens will not commit a crime in their whole life. However, most of us may have a experience of making a mistake. Unlike committing a crime, making a mistake is not a big problem for society; therefore, it doesn't deserves a server punishment.
However, nowadays many schools ignore this huge difference and thus apply zero-tolerance policy in school. This policy might be effective to treat criminal; however, it is not a good policy to be used in school. Mistake is very easy to be corrected, but the zero-tolerance policy take away the opportunities to correct those mistakes from students who may have a prospective future.
Although both prison and schools are a place to develop as people, school is a place of opportunity and prison is a place of punishment. When a child goes to school they are coming to get support and an education. Teachers and staff often mistreat them. For example in the pipeline game the hall security guard at a high school tells the student that they will "never amount to anything". A student goes to school to learn and gain knowledge that will help them later in life. School is a place where opportunity is given to every student no matter where they are from. If students are being mistreated such as the hall security guard putting down their self esteem, then a school no longer represents a place of opportunity. If schools are basically a pipeline to prison there is no opportunity there at all. Students need support and encouragement to succeed at all the opportunities they are presented with. When schools act like a place of punishment, students are extremely discouraged and don't end up taking positive opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe difference in school compared to prison is that school is a place where people learn and a place that is somewhat enjoyable, whereas prison is generally a place that's viewed as scary and not a place people generally want to end up in. Because of this, school is treated with a less strict mentality where as prisons may be treated with a more strict approach, which allows for strict punishments in the judicial system as opposed to just minor punishments as you would see in a general school district. It's significant in the manner that it doesn't allow for a reasoning for schools to be related to prisons. This brings a point of are they treating children with really strict punishments for not so severe "crimes"? What should be done about the punishments? Should they be allowed to punish children severely for small crimes, such as having their cell phones out? I think that schools need to be more lenient as to what they allow in schools because the purpose of school is for learning, but if they end up suspending students, giving detentions, expelling, etc, they would be hindering the education of the students. Minor reasons to expel and suspend students should be limited and suspensions should be given on rare occasions because there is no rule that should result in suspension except major problems such as a fight breaking out, or cheating, etc.
ReplyDeleteA number of similarities tie schools and prisons together, however, based upon one’s financial status they may be able to attend a number of different schools, while finances do not control one’s placement in the prison system. A wealthy citizen who commits murder will be tried no matter what and if incarcerated they will be jailed according to their crime. If a school system lacks quality or satisfaction and a student is able to afford attendance to a private institution then they are in control of their education. If citizens could pay to be imprisoned with nonviolent criminals or perhaps pay to shorten their sentence, the wealthy may be more inclined to be engaged in criminal activity. A crime is decidedly unethical by the people; it would be just as unethical to use wealth to hinder such justice. Although this sort of effect on prison would be enormous, the difference in students from private to public is not as significant. Just because someone simply pays to attend a private school this does not mean they will utilize the resources they have been given accordingly. Looking at the prison situation, one who uses wealth to improve their situation is no better a person, they are just offered opportunity that another may not have. Likewise, just because one has wealth does not mean they pursue a private education, but, a wealthy person it seems would choose one hundred percent of the time to use their wealth in order to improve their imprisonment circumstances.
ReplyDeleteThe difference that comes to my mind between prisons and schools is that school is not mandatory while prison is. No one chooses to go to prison but students still have the choice to go to school (even if their parents force them to). This indicates to me that school has incentives to attend while prison has none. It shows the obvious that school is rewarding and prison is rehabilitating. Although schools can be seen as disciplinary at times, the overall focus should be on teaching rather then punishing students. If schools defer from the principals of teaching, and choose to increase discipline, the affect would seem to push schools toward a prison-like manner. Where prisons are for teaching through discipline, schools should focus on teaching through understanding.
ReplyDeleteEven though schools and prisons are in some way alike, people can be treated more subjectively in schools than in prison. This means in prisons, the authority basically treats prisoners in a regulatory approach, while, in schools, teachers and other staffs can decide the punishment more randomly.
ReplyDeleteThe reason lies behind this phenomenon is prisons don't have the right to make judgement on the prisoners. However, in schools, judge makers and the rule executors are one. Based on their assumption, the red-line between normal behavior and misconduct varies quite a bit. This won't lead to a terrible consequence unless the teachers have motives for punishment a certain group of students. As mentioned in the given article, once test scores can distinctinguish people, great incentives are introduced into the teachers' judgement.
This subtle difference result in a quite obvious problem, that the students are more vulnerable. Especially for a certain kind of students. As this subjective treatment is implicit rendering a negative influence on students, people should focus more on constructing a more reasonable and more regular rule which can be executed without the difference in school.
School is a place where you are given many opportunities to better yourself and make strides towards a bright future. You are given an educational foundation that can lead you onto college and a successful life. Schools also provide extracurricular activities and give you the choice of which ones you would like to participate in. Prison on the other hand tells you what you must do and doesn't give you the option to do what you want. You are under the prison system's control and rarely get a chance to learn and usually it is rare that you can make it to the top once you finish your stint in a jail cell. The similarity between the two is that you have time to reflect on your life and think of what you do need to change and work towards once you move on to the next stage of school or the real world once released from prison. Both places give you space if you need it to just ponder your mind and figure out what is best for you and how you want to change or continue with the life that you are living.
ReplyDeleteThere're many similarities between school and prison. They both have roles or regulations and they both use those roles to educate and control people. The significant difference is that the regulations in prison are more serious and strict than the policies and roles in school. In other words, students in school care less about the policies than the prisoners treat regulations in jail (like the pipeline game shows, the child knows that it's not allowed to bring cellphone to school, nor late to leave the classroom.).This is because that the students in school aren't aware of the seriousness of the school's policies, and they think they won't be punished too heavy so it's not a big deal to cross the line a little bit. While not obey the roles in prison will apparently get prisoners a heavy punishment. This may because that parents themselves don't treat the school regulations in a serious way, so they allow their children, or give them chances to violate them.
ReplyDeleteA major factor that distinguishes prisons from schools is the fact that school is a place of opportunity that prepares young people for the future, while prison is a place that punishes people for their past. Students in school have a clean slate and can make with their lives what they will. It is the school's responsibility to help the students grow and to encourage them to live their lives to the highest potential. Oppositely, prison is a place for people who do not have a clean slate. There people reflect on their past indiscretions and pay for what they did wrong. I think this obvious difference has to deal with life experience. Students in school have not had many life experiences and principles such as zero tolerance policies is supposed to prepare them for the real world. Prisoners have often had many life decisions where, unlike students in school, they had a choice and made a wrong or bad one. I think prison is something people endure WITHOUT choice because of a wrong decision made while school is a choice students make to further enrich their lives.
ReplyDeleteEven though there are many similarities between schools and prisons, I believe one major difference is the fact that in the school system there are adults that are willing to help you and are good role models. In prisons there aren't many people that you can openly talk to about their lives and about their experiences with however when you are in school you can talk to your teachers about different things in life. In a school setting, your teacher became a teacher for a reason, to help students, help them grow, learn, think, gain experiences however many of those in a prison such as guards came to protect, not to talk. I think this difference between schools and prisons is one that makes an impact on a child mostly because if a child is in prison and has no one to be a good role model for him or her than how will they know who they should become. Teachers and how they deal with situations like the phone in school for example have an impact on the child and if the teacher is understanding that demonstrates part of who the teacher is while at the same time if they suspend the student it shows that they won't be walked all over. This can help the child chose who they want to become one day.
ReplyDeleteThe difference I would like to acknowledge is the context of work in each setting. In a school, your work is educational and given so a student might learn the materials they will need to succeed in life. A prisoner's work is either nothing or strictly what is assigned to them. A prisoner's work is not given for learning purposes (unless they are learning discipline), but for punishment. The prison is what benefits from the work done by the prisoners. The students, the school, and society are what benefits the work being done in schools. Although the way in which both schools and prisons function are similar, the significance is the difference in how the people grow and take a part in society. Prisoners have made their impact on society and society has not liked their choices. Students have not yet made their impact because they are still working to achieve their place.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we can find some similarities between schools and prisons, such as the place for group activities and group for get certain kind of education, obviously there still exist many differences between these two different systems. School is defined as a place for self development like knowledge, growth or friendship. The youth who are attending school are teenagers need to be shaped in characteristics and experts. They are shapeable and it is easy to understand that they are easy to make mistakes and break rules by accident occasionally. However, prison is the place for self correction distinct from development. Most of prisoners crime what they know before intentionally. They are sent to the jail for correction and repent in order to be refreshed when they are released. Therefore, under the zero tolerance policy, it can only increase the unfairness to the laws because the students may not distinguish between innocence and criminals. When I am playing the game "school-to- prison pipeline", it is surprised that I will be in prison or be punished severely with normal and common reaction for the violation. For example, I have no chance to explain the emergency to security guard about the phone ring and will be sent back home.
ReplyDeleteActually, to some extent, schools are the places for avoiding getting into prison in the future. They are not the same just sharing a little similarities.
Schools and prisons are arguably similar in many ways, yet so different. Ultimately, chances are hardly any of us (hopefully none at all) have really experienced both prison and school. Though, based on our outside view and learning experiences we can make assumptions about the comparison and differces, generally, of prison and school. One could assume the view that both prison and school are forms of imprisonment, however, is this really the case? Is school technically a form of imprisonment? Many students may tell you this is so, but in contrast, people in prison may feel inclined to tell you that if you trust their view prison is horribly worse than school. So, you could actually argue that statement that prison is more or less a form of imprisonment and actually madatory to attend and also is less willing to have sympathy or try and help you with your troubles except by complete isolation. The approach schools seem to take is more along the lines of non-mandatory, yet encouraging you to attend for your own benefit because the teachers actually care and would like to take time out of their personal lives to help you and educate you. This then brings up the arguement of punishment in schools. Well, schools do punish and more times than not I would venture to say is not as strict a punishment than that of prison. Should schools punish at all? Or maybe, should schools focus less on punishment and more on the education? Then again, whose fault is it ultimately that one doesn't strive to recieve their own education and would rather make trouble? I beleive that the similarity between schools and prisons actually help further the understanding of the tolerance levels and overall punishment levels of those involved. We like to think that a detention for using a cellphone in class is bad or talking back to the higher authority, but what do you think the punishment for doing the same in prison would be? It seems quite necessary that there should be punishment of some kind, however, there wouldn't have to be punishment (most of the time) if students abided by the rules and wanted to be there to further their own education. One could argue that this is true, and possibly that it sits solely on the student to choose if they want to just do as told and learn without punishment or to disobey and be punished. There is also the argument that teachers would punish based on bias or discrimination, but that is the beauty of the arguement itself. Essentially, we decide where we stand and what should be done about the situation at hand. Your choice, prison or school, better said imprisonment or freedom? YOUR choice!
ReplyDeleteIn many aspects prison and school have similarities, however one distinction between the two is that those who are placed in prison, a place without many opportunities to educate and better oneself, are put there because they broke the law or were convicted of a crime; whereas individuals are placed in school so that every person receives the opportunity to educate themselves and integrate themselves into society. This is not to punish them in the slightest. In school, you have a plethora of extracurricular activities and educational avenues to pursue, while in prison the opportunities are "few and far between." Schooling provides choices and endless possibilities to learn from and occupy yourself with. On the contrary, prison does not offer these and in fact, makes most of those things mandatory for those incarcerated. The two differ due to fact that there is some element of choice or "free-will" in school, while it is severely lacking in the penitentiary system. People are placed in these two settings for different reasons.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the prison pipeline system game strives to point out as many similarities as it can between prisons and schools, there are still some differences. The prison pipeline game argues the point that the vicious cycle of imprisonment, release, crime, and re-imprisonment is similar to the the cycle of zero-tolerance policies and punishments in schools. Although some strong similarities do exist between these two cycles, including the fact that an infraction leading to punishment in either cycle makes it harder for the student or prisoner to break out of the cycle. Just as it is harder for prisoners to find jobs after prison, it is harder for students to catch up on missed work after being punished, or in severe cases, they have trouble finding a new school that will enroll them. However, there is also a difference between schools and prisons in regards to the cycle as most prisoners have ended up in this cycle due to a serious infraction that a jury of his peers deemed worthy of severe punishment. In the schools a "zero-tolerance" policy does not give the student a right to a fair trail, where the circumstances of the action, such as a child's mother telling them to answer her phone call, are taken into account. Rather, the zero-tolerance policy mandates a predetermined punishment for the action, whether there was a circumstance which deemed the action necessary or not. This difference is significant because it cuts the "fair trial" part of the cycle out of the student's punishment cycle, it is this first preventive step that separates the guilty who deserve a form of punishment from the innocent who were just following instructions given to them, or making an honest effort to catch up on missed school work. If we are going to subject children to the same punishment system as adults, does this mean we think children are just as responsible for their action's as adults? Does this imply that children, whom we do not allow any legal freedom or power due to their "lack of responsibility" , are to be held just as responsible for their personal actions as the adults who we give the right to vote, earn money, and practice legal freedoms?
ReplyDeleteSchools and prisons are alike because children are stuck in them just like prisoners are stuck in prison. It is the law to be forced to go to prison when one has committed a crime; it is a law for all children to attend school up to twelfth grade. There exist many rules and regulations in schools that it is practically like a prison - this includes having only a small selection of food to eat at lunch, being confined to within the school boundaries during specific hours, not being able to use cell phones or iPods during those hours, and seeing the same people day in and day out. School staff are like prison guards, constantly keeping an eye out for misbehaving students. However, when I was in high school, I felt like the teachers would only assume that certain students were guilty, such as class clowns or students who frequently got in trouble. Teacher's pets play a large part in escaping punishment. I think this is has a lot to do with sociology - gossip and stories about certain students spread to not only other students, but teachers as well, which can cause biased and unfair treatment to them. In this way it is like a prison because this treatment can cause a student to feel trapped. This may be a reason why numerous students have a difficult time pushing through high school on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteThough many of us as some point in time might view school as being the same as imprisonment, the comparison lacks a truly informed perspective. Like many of the comments here suggest, most if any of us have experienced both environments. Consequently, we must use what we know, or rather, what we think we know about prison life and compare it to our own school experiences. From an individually-centered standpoint, both prisons and schools appear to exist to benefit the prisoner and the student in some way. Offenses committed while imprisoned can earn you extra time. Similarly, offenses committed while in school can earn you some form of penal reaction by the school. A zero-tolerance policy is something I would expect to be a standard practice in a prison, but in a school, I feel like a better alternative could be used. This sort of policy implemented in schools assumes that any form of rule breaking is done through an unjustifiable incentive. It does not serve to benefit the individual, but only serves to benefit the whole in that all are treated equally. The problem is the individual can suffer tremendously, as was shown in the game, so that the school can uphold a standard of punishment. This brings to light a key difference between the two settings being compared, the degree of overbearingness. The last thing a student needs is for his superiors to be needlessly overbearing authoritarians. In a way, a zero-tolerance policy conditions students to constantly be aware of the possibility of wrongdoing and consequently become fearful of the environment. This is not nurturing and might even provoke a student to rebel at some point. That style of administration is essentially creating an anxious environment for the student where focus is directed more on following rules rather than actually learning.
ReplyDeleteSchool and prison may be seen in some of the same ways, but a major difference in the two is construction and destruction. Schools create growth of many children's minds and personalities. On the other hand, when someone is imprisoned, there is little room for personal growth. Like the pipeline game says,prisoners are offered little to no education while incarcerated. Furthermore, prisons are used to get people to stop doing harmful things, not teaching them productive things. This "destruction" leaves even less in a person's mind then they started with. How come prisons aren't more like schools? Does this mean we should leave former prisoners to the world without necessary knowledge? Theoretically, prisons should be set up just like schools. Along with teaching prisoners to quit their bad habits, prisons should educate their detainees in different subjects. After all, schools were set up to increase the capabilities of the people in certain countries, states, and cities, yet institutions like prisons have been set up to do the exact opposite.
ReplyDeletePrisons exist for punishment of those that should know why and what they did was wrong, while schools can exist to make mistakes into learning experiences so that they do not make them later in life. Children are still learning and are still being taught the differences between actions in life. To make every mistake made into a punishable offence is taking away all life instruction. To punish every mistake could be considered worse than not teaching them at all. If we treat them as such, we are simply preparing them for prison later on. Learning how to avoid getting punished is not the same as learning how to do things right. This attitude is closely related to those committing crimes under the notion of "I just have to not get caught". To punish younger people that are still learning is as destructive as teaching them how attract trouble.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the school to prison pipeline game shows the several similarities between schools and prisons, it fails to point out any differences. School is a place where the main goal is development. In prison, there isn't an opportunity for development, which is pointed out in the article. Prison is a place where punishment is the main goal. Development suggests improvement so the goal is that the students improve their education while also improving themselves as a member of society. If the main goal is development then they shouldn't use zero-tolerance policies on things that may have really good explanations. If there is some good coming out of why a student is breaking a rule, then they should not be punished but rather guided in the right direction. Also, if prison is a place for punishment then there should be a zero tolerance policy since they are being punished and not developed into better citizens. If students are doing something like bringing a cell phone to school because their mother told them to, then that shouldn't be considered a crime. If the student is being punished for something that they know was right then they will start to be confused about what is actually right and wrong. If a student knows that it doesn't matter whether what they do is right or wrong because they will be punished anyways, then they will more than likely start to do things that are wrong. Even though the goal for schools is supposed to be development, if the schools don't have some understanding about each individual situation then they will be punishing students that shouldn't be punished. And if students are thinking that they might as well do something wrong since they will get in trouble either way then aren't the schools doing exactly what they are trying not to do?
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