My High School is Like Prison

I have served my prison term, and I don’t want to be locked up again. That is exactly how I felt when I stepped forward at high school graduation to receive my diploma. The days of cruel authority with no room for exceptions were over for me. It wasn’t the actual process of education that made high school like a prison for me. But high school, governed like a prison by rules, routines, and confinement, created an atmosphere that did not encourage learning and self-improvement.

At the core, high schools and prisons are institutions based on rules with built-in punishments for any sort of disobedience. There are probably sound reasons for most of the rules the law enforcers have developed in both settings, such as safety, control, and efficiency. It seems that the stress in both of these atmospheres is on punishment rather than on reward and encouragement for good behavior. Breaking the rules in both cases leads to punishment; following the rules leads to uninteresting routi...