Why are schools all about control?

In most instances, kids respond to a request from adults that takes in to consideration their needs and wants.  Kids are pretty simple -- they want to be liked and treated with respect, just like everybody else.

I guess my problem with school is that the culture of school immediately assumes that kids NEED to be controlled the way wild animals need to be controlled. Or kids need to be manipulated to do what we want them to do.

Kids have always been a little dubious of school because it's not mandatory; it's compulsory.  School is compulsory because school districts know that kids don't want to show up every day to a building with a prison-looking facade, bars in the windows and uncomfortable straight-backed chairs in order to do mindless, boring, uninspired activities for frowning and judgmental adults all day long under  uncomfortable asylum lighting.

Our society has turned the wildly wonderful process of learning in to the most boring and unexciting thing you could possibly be doing with your time!

That's why kids love field trips and snow days.  Tomorrow is a possible snow day in NYC and everybody (kids and teachers alike) is totally praying we get one.  That's because a lot of the time, kids don't like to be at school.

Teachers know kids don't want to be there and it's REALLY HARD trying to inspire people to want to be in a prison of anti-learning.

Human being children have strong passions and interests that get squelched in school.  Kids just start to realize, "Oh, so I never get to learn what I want to learn at school."  And it becomes drudgery.

Classroom management is a big issue in schools.  I am not really sure why because learning is like eating -- it's totally natural.  Kids WANT TO LEARN just as much as they want to EAT.  Where did we go wrong?

I read John Taylor Gatto's book Weapons of Mass Instruction this Fall.  I highly recommend it to anybody who senses that there is something really fishy about the history of schools within the last century in America. Believe me, it's an eye-opener.

Schools are a product of a society where we have been taught to OBEY, BEHAVE, and DON'T BE TOO SMART FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.  Schools keep human curiosity and inventiveness down to a minimum so that the status quo never loses their place at the top of the powerful economic pyramid.

You might be thinking, "But no way! Schools have taken the poor, huddled masses of ignorant people and turned them in to functioning, thriving members of society!"  Let me ask you something -- Would you seriously call the adults of our present-day society "functional" or even close to "thriving"?  

Case closed.  We need to rethink how we educate human beings so that we are taking in to consideration  each individual's stellar gifts and curiosities.  We need a curriculum that is flexible, adaptable, and student-directed.  A democracy needs democracy modeled in its schools.