Are schools prisons?

Through Twitter, I found this great, if also very controversial article this morning: Why schools are what they are by Peter Gray. He names the following reasons for the fact that our school system is so embedded in culture and society:

- school is what everybody else does; it's normal

- schools give parents they 'reassurance' that their child is being looked after in a 'useful' way

- you can 'predict' what children are being taught in schools

- schooling prepares children for 'high class jobs' which will give them a lot of money

- it offers an easy way to see who are the 'good' and 'bad' children

- schools give jobs (in the US there are 6.8 Million teachers alone)

- private and higher education makes a lot of money

Of course none of these reasons are really valid if you think about how unhappy some children are, having to go to school. However, I am emphasising some and with it disagree quite profoundly with Gray, who calls schools prison in his newest article Why students don't like to go to school. I know many people who were very happy in the school system. They enjoyed the social aspect of it (getting to know many new people you would normally never meet and of course seeing yor friends every day) and a lot of them also enjoyed the academic side and the fact that they were introduced to a wide range of subjects.

Grey would probably say now that they have been mind washed to accept the restrictions in the system and maybe that's true (, I am not going to argue with a psychologist about psychology here :-), but I have to say that although I did not really care much about my German school time (apart from finding many subjects a waste of time which resulted in me staying in the UK for my further education), I loved taking my A-Levels. I was able to research things I was very interested in, had adults who inspired me and whose knowledge was at my finger tips, had the resources available to me which I wanted and actually enjoyed the routine of the daily schedule.

However, it must be said that there is probably a big difference between US high schools and UK FE colleges! When I was in the US, I just found high school plain boring. The building was horrible, the teachers unfriendly and after a week, I was the best in all of my classes without making an effort (you see, I am very good in adapting to the system and maybe that's why I have trouble rejecting it as a whole- egoistic, I know). But again it did not feel like prison. Students were able to choose (in a limited way their time table and of course after school activities) and they were encouraged to take singing lessons, band, languages and music. And this is only again one specific example. I do not know what a 'real' high school in the US looks like. Maybe I should find out some time, considering how many children are actually 'trapped' in that system, to use Gray's expression.