Imagine: You receive a letter from a government agency demanding your attendance at a "Citizen's Training Program" for one year.
You are to report each day, Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to sit in a room with 20 other adults who have received the same letter, to be taught whatever it is the government thinks you ought to learn in order to be a good citizen.
What the f** is this?* you wonder, as you read the letter. I have things to do, places to go, people to be with! I don't want to go to this stupid training program.
Too bad. The letter says that you must attend, or else you will be heavily fined and possibly imprisoned.
You scan the letter, and each paragraph is more outrageous than the last.
You will be given days off, but only on the agency's schedule. Otherwise, you will not be allowed to take a day off unless you can provide a doctor's note to prove you were ill. Furthermore, you will not be allowed to leave your assigned training room without permission from an instructor, even to use the restroom.
You will not be allowed to study what interests you or sparks your passion; you will study the one-size-fits-all curriculum that the government agency has designed. This curriculum includes some subjects that you are already well-educated about, and other subjects that you will need more time to learn than is allowed in the training program. Regardless of your level of competence with any subject, you will be made to study the material at the exact scope and pace dictated by the curriculum.
The training program will have certain rules and standards. It will be the purview of the instructors and administrators of the program to interpret these rules and standards, and if you are found to have broken them, you can be punished with forced isolation, forced labor, sanctioned violence, or confiscation of your belongings.
You will receive no compensation for your time.
Your work in the training program will be assessed and graded. If you do not keep your marks above a certain level, you will be forced to repeat the program again next year.
And you will be given assignments to take home each night and on the weekends, so that the majority of even your leisure time for the next year will be devoted, whether you like it or not, to completing the training program.
When you have completed the program, you will be given a piece of paper that states that you have graduated from the compulsory training program that all adult citizens must complete. Employers will check your application references to be sure you have completed the program, but it will not make you more competitive in the job market; you will have spent one year of your life to receive training that puts you on exactly the same training level as every other person in society.
The program is "free of tuition", but you will pay for it via taxation for the rest of your life. If you elect not to participate in the state sponsored program, you must enroll in a private sector equivalent, which must be approved and licensed by the same government agency that is sending you this letter. The private sector program will charge you an arm and a leg to enroll with them instead of with the state sponsored program, but this will not get you out of having to pay for the state sponsored one through taxes until you die.
What would you think if you received such a letter? What would you do?
Chances are, you would be furious. You would think that the government agency had no right to demand this of you, and you would be right.
If a foreign government required this of their adult citizens, most of us would consider that government a tyranny.
And yet many of us don't think twice about a similar government scheme which forces the most vulnerable members of society to attend compulsory training programs, not for one year, but for twelve of the most formative years of their lives.
Yes, I'm talking about compulsory K-12 schooling. Both public schools and private schools that are forced to run their operations by state guidelines fall into this category. And it's nothing more than child imprisonment.
In prison, an inmate is:
- Forced to remain in the facility for a fixed sentence
- Not permitted to leave without administrative approval
- Not allowed to see their family or loved ones throughout the duration of the sentence without special dispensation
- Subject to search and seizure of belongings at the guard or warden's whim
*Not allowed to exercise the right to free speech - Controlled by the prison schedule and not allowed to participate in any unapproved activities
- Forced to get permission before leaving one room and going to another
- Subject to constant surveillance
- Subject to a lengthening of the sentence if rules are broken or standards are not upheld
- Told when to eat, sleep, socialize, play, work, or use the bathroom
In a compulsory school, a child is:
- Forced to attend for a fixed term
- Not permitted to leave without administrative approval
- Not allowed to see your family or loved ones throughout the duration of your fixed term without special dispensation
- Subject to search and seizure of belongings at the instructor's or administrator's whim
- Not allowed to exercise the right to free speech
- Controlled by the program's schedule and not allowed to participate in any unapproved activities
- Forced to get permission before leaving one room and going to another
- Subject to constant surveillance
- Subject to a lengthening of the fixed term if rules are broken or standards not upheld
- Told when you may eat, sleep, socialize, play, work, or use the bathroom
The only real difference seems to be that a prison inmate is presumably in the situation he is guilty of committing some heinous act, while a child is completely innocent, and is only in the situation he is in because the government said he must.
And before you go ranting in the comments section about how I'm anti-education, let me clarify. I am very, very pro-education. And I'm not against schools, either.
Education is great. Schools can be excellent places to receive education. What I object to is the compulsion factor.
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series. Here is Part 2.
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Hi! I'm Leslie Starr O'Hara, but my friends call me Starr. I live in the mountains of North Carolina and I am a FULL TIME WRITER who doesn't wait for the muse to show up before getting to work! I write humor, essays, and fiction here on Steemit and elsewhere.